

Class 
Book 
Copyright N^. 






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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



ins 



as arrived, 
ry walk in 
he reading- 
e be given 

egislatures 
ing of local 
ovement is 
)ther study 
lod citizen- 
nding the 



In respo 
of a dozen s 
State Histo 
gaining hea 
contributes 
ship as the 
settlement i 

Children or tne west are requirea to spend too much 
time on the settlement of New England and too little on 
their own section. A study of the various charters granted 
to the early colonists by the sovereigns of England is in- 
teresting to the scholar, but to the American boy or girl 
the meeting of the free and honest pioneers of Oregon in 
the open air at Champoeg means vastly more. 

The Indian wars that were fought in our valleys and 
mountains have a greater significance than the troubles 
with the Pequots, and the devotion of Jason Lee and the 
martyrdom of Whitman are unsurpassed in the annals of 
any country or time. 

The Story of Oregon and Its People " gives for the 
first time the History of Oregon in a form suitable as a 
text-book for school use, and the favor with which it has 
already been received proves that the teachers of the state 
are alive to the necessity of such instruction. 



ORDER FROM 

THE J. K. GILL CO. 

PORTLAND 

Distributers 



THE STORY OF OREGON 

AND ITS PEOPLE 



By CHARLES H^ CHAPMAN, Ph. D. 



CHICAGO 

O. P. BARNES, Publisher 






Copyright, 1909, 
By O. p. Barnes 




CI. A 24 5 89 2 
AUi 19 1909 



PREFACE 

To the student of human affairs the history of the 
settlement of Oregon will ever be a tale of absorbing 
interest. Coming as the last of those westward move- 
ments by which the American commonwealths were 
peopled, Oregon more closely typifies the home-seeking 
and the home-making spirit of the Saxon race than 
any of her sister states. 

The early pioneers of Oregon were not driven to 
make the hazardous journey by the lash of religious 
persecution, nor were they impelled to brave the hard- 
ships of the plains and mountains by the desire for 
gold. Sustained only by the ambition to found a home 
for themselves and their children in the distant West, 
or led by the unselfish zeal of the missionary, they 
went about their task soberly and seriously, and with 
a resolute purpose that never faltered in the presence 
of danger. 

Certainly the children of no land under the sun have 
a nobler heritage of brave and honest ancestry than 
those of Oregon, and if THE STORY OF OREGON 
AND ITS PEOPLE shall bring this fact and its mes- 
sage closer to the hearts of the young it will have 
served the purpose for which it was written. 

June, 1909. O. P. Barnes. 



COVER DESIGN 

The design on the cover is reproduced from a photo- 
graph of Hermon Atkins MacNeil's statue, "The 
Coming of the White Man," which stands in the City 
Park at Portland, Oregon, facing the gorge through 
which the white man first floated down the Columbia. 

"The group is that of two Indians, Chief Multnomah 
and a young brave. The figures have a peculiar beauty 
and dignity of their own . Into the figure of Multnomah 
the artist has put the pride of all the Indian tribes, as 
he has endowed the young brave with a youthful 
curiosity, — the strong characteristics of the two, indi- 
vidual, yet harmonious in their relations to each other." 
— Harriet Warner Chapin, in The Pacific Monthly. 



CONTENTS 

Chapter Page 

I Discovery of the Columbia 9 

II The Northwest Company 21 

III The Lewis and Ci.ark Expedition 24 

IV John Jacob Astor's Colony 40 

V Rule of the Fur Company 49 

VI The First Pioneers 54 

VII The Mission at Salem 64 

VIII The Whitman Missions 79 

IX Agitation for \ Provisional Govern- 

ment 88 

X The Emigration of 1842 99 

XI Progress of the Whitman Missions 103 

XII The Provisional Government 108 

XIII The Emigration of 1843 113 

XIV Under the Provisional Government 121 

XV The Emigrations of 1844 and 1845 125 

XVI Opening of the Southern Route 128 

XVII The Whitman Massacre and the Cay- 

use War 134 

XVIII Oregon Made a Territory 137 

XIX Condition of Oregon in 1848 141 

XX Discovery of Gold 145 

XXI Development. Indian Wars 148 

XXII The Inland Empire 154 

XXIII Internal Communication. Land Grants 157 

XXIV Oregon Today 164 



MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS 

^ A Scene on the Columbia i6 

vMap of the Mouth of the Columbia 17 

^Portraits of Lewis and Clark 32 

^ Map of Oregon Trail and Route of Lewis 

AND Clark 35 

• Fort George (Astoria) 48 

V Map of the Oregon Country South of the 49TH 

Parallel 57 

^ Reverend Jason Lee 64 

.Fort Vancouver 80 

The Days of Old 96 

The First House in Portland 112 

nIbefore the Railroad 128 

A Mountain Canyon 144 

The New Oregon Trail 160 

Railroad Map of Oregon 161 

\ Industrial Map of Oregon 167 



CHAPTER I 

Discovery of the Columbia 

1. The River of the West.— During the first half of 
the eighteenth century that part of the United States 
which lies west of the Mississippi River and north of 
the forty-second parallel of latitude was claimed by 
France as part of Louisiana. The province of Louisiana 
also included much territory south of the forty-second 
parallel, but the history of Oregon is not concerned 
with it.^ Before the close of her colonial wars with 
England in 1763, France ceded Louisiana to Spain, 
but for many years prior to that event the country 
between the Great Lakes and the Rocky Mountains 
was diligently explored by French travelers and Jesuit 
missionaries. In their books of travel which are very 
numerous, these men repeated accounts given them 
by the Indians of a great river beyond the Shining 
Mountains.^ It was naturally said to flow into the 
Pacific Ocean and was known by various names such 
as River of the West, River Thegayo, Rio de Aguilar. 
One of the French explorers, Lepage Dupratz, fell in 

^The forty-second parallel of latitude forms the boundary between 
Oregon and California. 

^The Frenchmen called the Rocky Mountains "Shining Mountains" 
because of the glittering rock pinnacles which are visible at a great 
distance, or perhaps because of the white snow peaks. Later they 
were called Stony, and finally Rocky Mountains. 



10 THE STORY OF OREGON 

with a Yazoo Indian, who had crossed the Shining 

Mountains and traveled down the River of the West 

until he was turned back by a war between the tribes 

dwelling on its banks, but in those days no white man 

had yet seen it. Thus we owe to the French the faint 

beginnings of our knowledge of the great river which 

separates the states of Oregon and Washington and 

drains the Inland Empire. 

2, The Oregon. — The first English-speaking traveler 

who had anything to say about the River of the West 

was Jonathan Carver, a native of Connecticut, who 

set out from Boston in the year 1766, and spent two 

years in the country around the head of Lake Superior 

and westward. He may have penetrated to the 

sources of the Missouri, but probably not. Very 

likely the Red River of the North was the western 

limit of his adventures.^ In his book of travels which 

was published in London in 1778, Carver speaks of the 

River of the West calling it the "Oregon." He says 

the Indians told him that it rose near the sources of 

the St. Lawrence, the Mississippi and the Red River 

of the North. The question of how Carver obtained 

the name Oregon has puzzled later writers. The plain 

implication from his narrative is that he heard it from 

the Indians, but this is not to be beUeved because it 

does not occur in any Indian language. Neither the 

natives with whom Carver conversed nor those who 

dwelt on the banks of the Columbia had any word 

^What Carver has to say about the country west of the headwaters 
of the Mississippi is largely translated from the writings of French 
travelers and missionaries. There is but little reason to believe that 
he actually saw what he tried to describe. 



DISCOVERY OF THE COLUMBIA 11 

which resembled Oregon.'* We may therefore suppose, 
if we like, that Carver misunderstood some name which 
the Indians gave him, or, to judge more harshly, he 
may have fabricated it. At any rate, the name 
"Oregon" can be traced to Carver's book of travels 
and to no other source. Just how it originated may 
always remain among those puzzles which provide 
historians with fertile matter for conjecture and con- 
troversy. It never came into common use for the 
River of the West, but was afterward applied to the 
whole tract of country north of California and west of 
the Rocky Mountains. 

3. The Name Oregon. — The melodious name Oregon 
seems to have pleased the fancy of the world from the 
time when Carver first published it, though it was not 
by any means universally known and used for many 
years. Captain Gray, who discovered the Columbia, 
knew nothing of it or he would not have felt at liberty 
to bestow the name of his ship upon the great river; 
nor does it appear in the journal of Lewis and Clark 
which was written between the years 1804 ^^id 1806. 
Still as time passed, the name Oregon was coming into 
vogue among those persons who had occasion to speak 
of the Pacific Coast region. Jeiferson employed it in 
his instructions to Lewis and Clark for instance, which 
indicates that it was in good literary repute when he 
wrote. Undoubtedly, however, it was the poet Bryant 
who made the name Oregon popular by using its sonor- 

■•Mofras, an acute and observant Frenchman who visited Oregon 
in 1841-2, says that the word "Oregon" is not found in the language 
of any Indian tribe that dwells on the banks of the Columbia. 



12 THE STORY OF OREGON 

ous syllables to enhance the solemn music of Thana- 

topsis. 

4. Search for the Columbia. — The vague accounts of 

the River of the West, which Carver and the French 

explorers had given, were confirmed by the natural 

supposition that the waters from the Pacific slope of 

the Rocky Mountains must find their way to the ocean 

somewhere. With this thought more or less clearly 

in mind, and haunted, too, by the old belief that there 

was a passage across the continent from the Atlantic, 

navigators who sailed along the western coast of North 

America before 1792 were on the watch either for the 

mouth of a great river or for a navigable channel toward 

the inland regions. They sought, also, northward of 

San Francisco for a good harbor, but for the most part 

they sought vainly since the coast in this region is 

singularly devoid of inlets which ships can enter easily. 

The Pacific Coast was frequented by vessels, and it 

stands to reason that many captains must have noticed 

the outflow of water from the mouth of the Columbia 

and wondered what lay beyond it toward the interior; 

but the entrance was guarded by an array of dangerous 

breakers miles in width, and before Captain Gray, none 

sefem to have crossed the bar. The ships which began 

the passage failed to finish it.'^ As early as 1775 the 

Spanish navigator Heceta, on a voyage of discovery 

along the coast, saw the mouth of the Columbia and 

attempted to enter it, but the breakers and the strong 

'■^The navigation at the mouth of the Columbia was beset with 
terrors for the early ship captains. Mofras says it was as dangerous 
a passage as he had ever seen. The government engineers have made 
the channel perfectly safe for modern vessels. 



DISCOVERY OF THE COLUMBIA 13 

seaward current foiled him. The famous Captain 
Cook coasting northward passed by the river but he 
did not find it. In 1778 Captain John Meares, who 
was an EngHshman saiUng under the Portuguese flag, 
explored the coast with a rather definite purpose to 
discover the River of the West. He had seen it marked 
on Spanish charts under the name of St. Roque, which, 
of course, the mapmakers had drawn from Heceta's 
observations. Meares found the mouth of the Colum- 
bia in the latitude which the charts indicated, but 
he mistook it for a mere indentation in the coast, and 
made up his mind that the Spanish mapmakers had 
blundered and misled him. In an unforgiving spirit 
he changed the name of the northern cape at the mouth 
from St. Roque to "Disappointment" and called the 
inlet Deception Bay. Posterity has dealt out poetic 
justice to these names. The cape is still called Dis- 
appointment, which is fair enough since Meares was 
actually disappointed, but inasmuch as the inlet was 
not a bay and did not deceive him, though he deceived 
himself, the title he gave to it has been dropped. 

5. Gray's First Voyage. — Captain Robert Gray, the 
American navigator who really discovered the Colum- 
bia River, made two voyages to the Pacific coast. In 
both of them he sailed from Boston in the employ of 
a firm of fur traders. Upon the first, which ended 
August 10, 1790, he traded with the Indians along the 
coast of Oregon and Washington and in a small boat 
explored an inlet which may have been the mouth of 
the Columbia.^ When his cargo of furs was complete, 

^Bancroft says it was Tillamook Bay, and he may be right. 



14 THE STORY OF OREGON 

Gray sailed homeward by way of China and circum- 
navigated the globe. By his ship's log he had traveled 
50,000 miles when he re-entered Boston harbor. 
Though the firm which employed him did not make a 
great deal of money by his first voyage, they were 
proud of his feat. It was something of an achievement 
to sail around the world in those days, and not many 
American sailors had done it. The fur traders were 
also encouraged by Gray's accounts to believe that 
they could build up a profitable business with the mari- 
time Indian tribes. Accordingly they speedily sent 
Gray forth on a second voyage in the same ship, 
"Columbia" by name, in which he had sailed before. 
It was in the spring of 1791 that he reached the Oregon 
coast again. Sailing northward toward Vancouver 
Island he saw the mouth of the Columbia and for nine 
days tried to enter it.'^ The outward rush of the waters 
and the breakers finally bafiled him as they had earlier 
sailors, and he gave up the attempt until the next spring. 
He passed the winter of 179 1-2 at Clayoquot Harbor, 
Vancouver Island. During the rainy months he kept 
his sailors employed by building a small sloop which 
he named the "Adventure." This was the second sea- 

^This is a necessary inference from what Vancouver says in his 
account of his meeting with Gray : " Mr. Gray stated that he had been 
some several days attempting to enter it, which at length he had 
been unable to effect in consequence of a very strong outset." How 
very British Vancouver must have been not to suspect that this 
strong outset implied a great river. He seems to have mistaken 
Sand Island for the main southern shore and to have overlooked the 
true mouth altogether. 



DISCOVERY OF THE COLUMBIA 15 

going vessel built on the Pacific coast north of San 
Francisco.* 

6. Discovery of the Mouth of the Columbia. — Early in 
April, 1792, Gray sailed to the southward from his 
winter harbor in the ship "Columbia." He was evi- 
dently determined to find out what the strong seaward 
current at Deception Bay signified. In the first days 
of May he was off the mouth of the Columbia, and on 
the nth he crossed the bar and entered the river. 
Being the first white man to behold its wide waters and 
to sail upon them, Gray had the right to name the 
stream. He called it the Columbia for his ship. The 
world has accepted this name for the river of the West 
in preference to Oregon or to any of the others by which 
it was formerly known, but Gray's name of "Cape 
Hancock" for Cape Disappointment has fallen into 
disuse. Gray sailed twenty-five miles up the Columbia. 
Then it puzzled him to find the channel among the 
shoals and he turned his prow to the west. On the 
20th of May he crossed the bar outward and sailed 
away to the north on his business of buying furs. His 
trade with the Indians prospered and when his ship 
was laden he voyaged homeward, once more circum- 
navigating the earth. To sailors like Captain Gray, 
who have shrewdness in practical affairs united with 
keen scientific curiosity, the world owes many impor- 
tant geographical discoveries. 

7. Vancouver's Arrival. — In the summer of 1792, 
while Gray was trading and exploring along the coast 

^Captain Meares built the first. It was called the " Northwest 
America." 



16 THE STORY OF OREGON 

of 6regon and Washington, Captain Vancouver of the 
British navy was also there with two vessels on business 
for his government.* Vancouver sailed on the larger 
vessel, the ** Discovery," while his consort, the "Chat- 
ham," was commanded by I^ieutenant W. R. Brough- 
ton. They reached Cape Mendocino in April, 1792, 
and thence proceeded northward exploring minutely 
as they coasted along. Vancouver expressed his sur- 
prise that there should be no good harbors on such a 
long stretch of coast line. The reader is more surprised 
that when he finally found one of the best in the world 
he had not the judgment to recognize it. He passed 
the mouth of the Columbia on the 27th of April but 
mistook it for a petty inlet unworthy of notice. Still 
going to the north, leaving behind the great discovery 
he might have made, and with the glory of it forever 
lost to him and his country, he fell in with Gray near 
the Straits of Fuca. Gray was then on the point of 
sailing southward to raake his second and successful 
effort to enter the Columbia. He told Vancouver of 
his trying to make the passage for several days the 
year before and finally giving it up, but, with true 

^Vancouver's business was to explore the coast and possibly to 
execute certain provisions of the Nootka Convention. This treaty 
between England and Spain was made on October 28, 1790. It 
pacified quarrels which had grown out of their conflicting claims to 
the Northwest Coast. Each nation pretended to derive title from the 
discoveries of the early navigators. Cook, for example on the English 
side, and Heceta on the Spanish. In 1789 both Spanish and British 
parties tried to settle at Nootka Sound, which brought matters to a 
crisis and led to the conclusion of the Nootka Convention. The 
general purport of this treaty was an agreement for joint occupation^ 
Spain's rights came down to the United States through the Louisiana 




MOUTH OF THE COLUMBIA RIVER 



DISCOVERY OF THE COLUMBIA 19 

British perversity, His Majesty's Captain insisted that 
the inlet was of no consequence in spite of the strong 
outward flow of water. He admitted that the phenom- 
enon was difficult to account for, yet he obstinately 
refused to account for it on the only rational hypothesis 
of a great river there discharging into the sea. For- 
tunately for America, Gray was less inclined to let his 
theories outweigh facts. 

8. Broughton Enters the Columbia. — Vancouver lin- 
gered on the coast north of the Columbia during the 
summer, gradually working his way into higher lati- 
tudes. On August 28th he anchored in Nootka Sound. 
In the meantime after entering the Columbia, Gray 
had touched at Nootka and left there a chart of the 
river's mouth. This Vancouver obtained and took 
with him when he sailed southward in October. On 
the 19th of that month he was again off the mouth 
of the Columbia, but fearing to attempt the entrance 
with his own vessel, he sent in Lieutenant Broughton 
with the ''Chatham" to explore the river. ^° Broughton 
sailed up the channel as far as he thought his ship 

Purchase, perhaps, and the Joint Occupation Treaty of 1818 between 
us and England may have been nothing more than a continuation 
of the Nootka arrangement. On January 1, 1794, Spain and England 
concluded another treaty which confirmed the Nootka arrangement 
for joint occupation. About a year later the Spaniards removed all 
their portable goods from Nootka, but they gave up none of their 
formal claims to the country. From that time to this no other white 
settlement has been established at the spot. It lay just north of the 
forty-ninth parallel and its good harbor made it in a modest way an 
international resort for the fur traders. Consult Schafer's History 
of the Pacific Northwest. 

^"^When Broughton entered the Columbia he found the British brig 
"Jenny" there before him. Broughton named Baker's Bay after the 



20 THE STORY OF OREGON 

could go safely then took to his launch and made his 
way to a point on the Washington side about loo miles 
from the mouth. To this place he affixed his command- 
er's name, Vancouver, which it still bears. 

9. Names of Points on the Columbia. — Many of the 
prominent places up and down the Columbia owe their 
names to Lieutenant Broughton. Mount Hood he 
named for an English Lord," Walker's Island for one 
of his men. Tongue Point was so called because of its 
shape, and Gray's Bay in honor of the discoverer of the 
Columbia. ^^ Thus the first systematic exploration of 
the Northwest Coast was made by Vancouver, a British 
naval officer, under the direction of his government, 
while Gray's discovery of the Columbia was the fruit 
of individual enterprise. His ship was one among 
many vessels which traded with the Indians along the 
coast for furs, and it is likely that the captains of these 
vessels made many discoveries which have never been 
recorded.^' 

captain of the "Jenny." One easily conjectures that many little 
barks may have slipped into and out of the Columbia before 1792 
without leaving any record. The tale of Dupratz's Yazoo Indian 
that the natives at the mouth of the river had seen ships and white 
men even in his day is not necessarily baseless. 

"Samuel Viscount Hood an English Admiral, born 1724, died 1816. 

*'Most of the historic points on the coast north of California and 
south of Alaska owe their names to Vancouver. His account of his 
explorations was published in sumptuous style in 1798. It was widely 
read and the names which it affixed to the places mentioned were 
accepted by the world once for all. 

'^Some historians say that captafns who happened upon good 
harbors would conceal their discoveries from rival traders. This was 
very natural. They were seeking profit, and cared nothing for 
geography. 



CHAPTER II 

The Northwest Company 

10. The Northwest Company. — In 1792 and for 
some years later there was free competition among 
all comers in the fur trade with the Indians on the 
Northwest Coast. But even at that time the great 
Northwest Company of Montreal had begun to stretch 
its long arms toward the Pacific. It had already 
monopolized the fur business of the interior country 
from the Hudson Bay slope to the Rocky Mountains. 
This powerful and indefatigable company was organ- 
ized in Montreal in the winter of 1783-4 by a number 
of Scotchmen who had taken up the fur trade in 
Canada after the country was ceded to Great Britain 
by the French. ^^ The old Hudson Bay Company, 
which was chartered by King Charles II in 1760, 
claimed indefinite rights over the whole of the British 
possessions north of the United States and at first 
asserted a monopoly of the fur trade throughout the 
entire region, vast as it was. The Northwest Company 
successfully resisted this effort of their older rival. 
With wonderful energy they pushed westward, build- 
ing forts and laying the foundations of permanent 
trade with the Indians as they advanced. By the 

"Canada passed over to the English in 1764. The cession from the 
French included the Mississippi Valley. Louisiana had been trans- 
ferred secretly to Spain the year before. 



22 THE STORY O^ OREGON 

year 1792 the scattered posts of the Northwest Com- 
pany occupied the Canadian territory to the eastern 
base of the Rocky Mountains. 

11. Alexander Mackenzie. — ^The most enterpris- 
ing of their factors was Alexander Mackenzie. This 
ardent and tireless explorer was born in Scotland and 
emigrated to Canada in his boyhood. Thoroughly 
trained in the secrets of the fur trade, he was also an 
enlightened traveler whose geographical discoveries 
made him famous. In the year 1785 he joined the 
"X Y Company" of Montreal, which was formed to 
compete with the Northwest Company, but in 1787 
the rivals united into one corporation under the name 
of the latter, and Mackenzie then became one of its 
partners and agents. His station in the year 1789 
was at Fort Chippewayan on the remote and dismal 
shore of Athabasca Lake. Setting out from this 
post in the spring of 1789, Mackenzie journeyed down 
the river which bears his name to the Arctic Ocean, 
making a safe return in the fall of the same year. In 
the fall of 1792 he set out from Fort Chippewayan on 
a second exploring trip, this time going to the west. 
He followed up the Peace River to its sources in the 
Rocky Mountains and there, overtaken by the snows 
of winter, he lay with his men till May. By June 
Mackenzie reached the summit of the Rocky Moun- 
tains, and first of all white men from the beginning of 
the world, saw the waters parting at his feet some to 
reach the Atlantic Ocean and some to wander through 
verdant vales and yawning chasms to the Pacific. 
He reached the river now called Fraser and voyaged 



THE NORTHWEST COMPANY 23 

down its course in canoes for two hundred and fifty miles ; 
then he struck to the west again and finally, not far from 
the parallel of fifty-two degrees north latitude, stood up- 
on the shore of the Pacific Ocean. Mackenzie was the 
first white man to cross the continent north of the Mexi- 
can line. Before he set out upon his return he painted 
this inscription in vermilion letters upon a promontory 
looking toward the sea: ''Alexander Mackenzie, from 
Canada by land, the twenty-second of July, one thou- 
sand seven hundred and ninety-three." His journey 
opened a pathway to the Pacific for the Northwest 
Company of fur traders and their adventurous pioneers 
soon followed in his steps. Thus the race began be- 
tween Great Britain and the United States for the 
possession of the Oregon country^^ with the British in 
the lead.^'' 

'^The Oregon country included all the territory from the Rocky 
Mountains to the Pacific north of California and south of Alaska. 

*^Long before 1803 the agents of the Northwest Company were 
building forts on the streams which finally reach the Columbia. The 
progress westward was continuous. When Astor began his enterprise 
at the mouth of the Columbia in 1810 they were prepared to combat 
and ultimately rout him. 



CHAPTER III 
The Lewis and Clark Expedition 

12. Origin of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. — The 
exploring expeditions of Sir Alexander Mackenzie de- 
veloped naturally from the tendency of the Northwest 
Company to expand its trade. The famous Lewis 
and Clark expedition across the continent to the Pacific, 
which occurred some ten years later, developed just as 
naturally from the tendency of the United States to 
expand its territory and population. The former was 
conceived and executed by a single great adventurer. 
The latter was conceived by the most intelligent 
American of his generation and executed by two sub- 
ordinates of consummate ability. Thomas Jefferson 
planned the expedition which Lewis and Clark con- 
ducted. Its course began at St. Louis and ended at 
the mouth of the Columbia. Like Xenophon's Ana- 
basis, Marco Polo's journey to Cathay, and the first 
voyage of Columbus across the Atlantic, the explor- 
ing expedition of Lewis and Clark had excited the 
imagination of the world, and as time passes historians 
become more and more deeply impressed with its im- 
portance. It was authorized by Congress in response 
to a special message from President Jefferson which 
he transmitted on January i8, 1803. 

13. Jefferson's Interest in the West. — Jefferson's 
alert and comprehensive intellect had long been in- 



THE LEWIS AND CLARK EXPEDITION 25 

terested in the country beyond the Mississippi. He 
loved to hear of its mountains, its Indian tribes, its 
desert wastes and the strange beasts which roamed 
them." Now and then he had received for his scien- 
tific collection specimen bones of extinct monsters 
which formerly dwelt in those remote and almost un- 
known regions and he eagerly sought for more.^^ From 
the close of the Revolution, too, his imagination had 
been kindled with lofty dreams of an imperial Nation 
which should stretch from the Atlantic to the Pacific 
Ocean. In those early times the adventurous John 
Ledyard wrote,^^ "The American Revolution invites 
to a thorough discovery of the continent," evi- 
dently thinking of a future when the United States 
would cover the continent. Jefferson knew Ledyard 
and encouraged him in his schemes of exploration. 
As early as December, 1783, Jefferson in writing to 
George Rogers Clark to propose tentatively a trip 
beyond the Mississippi hinted that the English would 

"The most interesting was the buffalo, then common on the plains 
but now almost extinct. The story of the buffalo illustrates the 
folly of permitting greed to operate without restraint. 

^^Scientists were then making those investigations into fossil re- 
mains which later enabled Darwin and others to write the history of 
life from its humble beginnings to the advent of man. Jefferson took 
all knowledge for his field. 

"Schafer gives an interesting account of Ledyard. He was a Con- 
necticut Yankee with a strong taste for rash adventures and a brain 
which projected new schemes as fast as his old ones failed. He sailed 
with Captain Cook, published a book in 1783 which interested Ameri- 
can merchants in the Pacific fur trade, fell a victim to the senseless 
tyranny of Russia, and finally died on his way to seek for the sources 
of the Nile. 



26 'THE STORY OF OREGON 

probably try to plant colonies there. ^^ No doubt 
jealousy of England played a part in keeping Jeffer- 
son's interest in the western country active from the 
close of the Revolution to the time when he actually 
despatched Lewis and Clark upon their journey. No 
man knew better than he what was going on in the 
world. He was informed of Sir Alexander Mackenzie's 
trip to the Pacific and he knew enough of the energy 
of the Northwest Company to foresee what its con- 
sequences would be. Already in 1803 the British 
traders had invaded the country about the tributaries 
of the Missouri. Their occupation of the whole region 
west of the Mississippi was only a question of time 
unless American enterprise should meet and turn 
them back. 

14. Jefferson and France. — But Jefferson's im- 
mediate anxieties concerning the Valley of the Miss- 
issippi and the entire western country related to 
France. By the treaty which closed the Revolu- 
tionary War, England had given up her claims to the 
territory east of the Mississippi and south of Canada. 
In 1 803 this was in the possession of the United States 
and it was rapidly filling with settlers from the older 
states. Kentucky then had a white American popu- 
lation of some 180,000; Ohio had 45,000. Altogether 

2°This tentative project never came to anything. In 1792 Jefferson 
induced the American Philosophical Society to raise a subscription 
for western exploration. Meriwether Lewis was put at the head of 
the expedition, but it got no further than Kentucky. This was not 
Lewis's fault. The botanist Michaux who was to take an important 
part was a Frenchman and his government recalled him just in time 
to spoil the trip. 



THE LEWIS AND CLARK EXPEDITION 27 

there were many more than 325,000 white Americans 
in the Mississippi Valley when Lewis and Clark set 
out on their journey. ^^ At the beginning of 1803 the 
country between the Rocky Mountains and the Miss- 
issippi, which was called Louisiana, belonged to 
France. In 1763 the French had ceded it to Spain, 
but in 1800 the powerful Napoleon, who then domi- 
nated European affairs, compelled the feeble Span- 
iards to return it. He had a wonderful project of 
building up a great colonial empire and making 
France, by means of it, the leading naval power of 
the world. The colonial empire would create mari- 
time trade; this would train sailors and multiply ships. 
His ideas were by no means fanciful, but he had too 
many other things on his hands to carry them out. 

15. Mouths of the Mississippi. — With Louisiana 
went the possession of the mouths of the Mississippi. 
To the settlers in the West this meant a great deal 
since the products of their farms and forests could 
reach the markets of the world only by way of New 
Orleans. 22 They understood that the French could 
shut them out from the city entirely if they chose, or 
could capture the profits of their labor by extortionate 
charges for storage, transfers and commissions. Who- 
ever held New Orleans was commercial despot of the 

2»Schafer puts the population at 325,000 in 1800. It could not 
have been much short of half a milHon in 1803. 

"At that time there were no railroads, of course. From the 
Mississippi Valley to the East there were not even wagon roads, and 
if there had been ever so good ones it would still have been cheaper 
to transport products by water to New Orleans. Cattle could be 
driven to market across the mountains, but no heavy freight could 
be carried so far. 



28 THE STORY OF OREGON 

Mississippi Valley. Even while Spain owned it the 
people were restless. From France, a much stronger 
and more aggressive nation which had long been 
planning to regain control of the Mississippi Valley, ^^ 
they expected active ill-treatment. From this state 
of things two consequences were almost certain to 
follow. Either the West would separate from the 
Union and fight the French independently for the 
control of the Mississippi, or it would embroil the whole 
country in a war for the same purpose. ^^ 

16. Jefferson's Designs, — To avert the danger 
of war and preserve the Union, Jefferson designed 
two measures of far reaching statesmanship. The 
first was a proposal to purchase from Napoleon 
the city of New Orleans and the adjacent land on the 
east bank of the Mississippi known as West Florida. 
This would insure commercial freedom to the West 
and soothe the irritation of the settlers. Jefferson's 
second design was to despatch an overland exploring 
expedition up the Missouri River to the Pacific. By 
this he hoped to accomplish several desirable objects, 
to build up friendly trade with the Indians along the 
Missouri and westward to the mountains, to attract 

2^The offensive Genet was commissioned in 1793 to intrigue for the 
cession of the Mississippi Valley to France among other things. 

2*In the early years of the nineteenth century the Mississippi 
Valley settlers were not very strongly attached to the Union. Wash- 
ington wrote to Governor Harrison of Virginia that "A touch of a 
feather would turn them any way," toward Spain, independence or 
a foreign protectorate. Undoubtedly the purchase of Louisiana 
did more than any other event to unite the country. With the elec- 
tion of Andrew Jackson to the Presidency the last possibility of 
secession in the West disappeared. 



THE LEWIS AND CLARK EXPEDITION 29 

the fur trade of the Northwest Coast eastward by the 
overland route, to hasten the settlement of the Miss- 
issippi Valley by American pioneers, thus forestalling 
the intrigues of the EngHsh and the French, to balk 
the advance of the Northwest Fur Company in the 
region of the upper Missouri and Columbia Rivers, to 
establish intimate commercial relations between the 
East and the developing West and, last, but by no 
means least, among the motives which governed 
Jefferson's vast intelligence, to satisfy his keen scien- 
tific curiosity and promote the science of geography. 

17. Purchase of Louisiana. — At the beginning of 
the year 1803 Jefferson began the execution of both 
these designs. He despatched Monroe to France to 
negotiate with Napoleon for the purchase of New 
Orleans and West Florida, ^^^ and he sent to Congress 
the famous message which outlined the plan of the 
expedition to the Pacific. Congress received the mes- 
sage on January 18, 1803, and promptly voted the 
necessary funds. The negotiations with Napoleon 
prospered beyond all expectation. Busied with new 
combinations in European affairs the great iconoclast 
offered to sell the whole of Louisiana to the United 
States hoping thus to upbuild a formidable military 
and commercial rival to England, his implacable foe. 
Jefferson leaped at the amazing opportunity and with 
one stroke of his pen made America an imperial nation 

^^West Florida was a narrow tract along the gulf east of the Missis- 
sippi. The United States claimed it under the Louisiana Purchase, 
and Spain as a part of Florida up to 1819. The United States then 
obtained undisputed title to it. 



30 THE STORY OF OREGON 

and insured to democratic institutions the scepter of 
the world. 

18. Meriwether Lewis. — For the leader of the 
exploring expedition Jefferson selected his friend 
Meriwether Lewis, a young Virginian whom he had 
known for years and who was his private secretary 
at the beginning of 1803. Lewis was attractive in 
mind and person, well educated and a lover of wood- 
craft. Better still, he was a born leader of men who 
knew well how to choose and to command his fol- 
lowers. Through all the adventures and perils of the 
expedition not a jar occurred between the leaders, 
there was no suggestion of complaint or mutiny and 
but one man perished. Of this good fortune by far 
the greater part must be attributed to the consum- 
mate gift of Lewis for leadership and command. 
Historians have lingered pensively over the romantic 
qualities and the mysterious fate of this adventurous 
hero. When he had returned from the Pacific covered 
with renown and apparently ready for a long career 
of supreme usefulness to his country, death suddenly 
struck him down. This was in 1809 when Lewis was 
thirty-five years old. Some say that he was mur- 
dered, others that he perished by his own hand in a 
moment of melancholy. Just how he died no man 
knows. 

19. William Clark. — With Jefferson's consent Lewis 
selected for his associate in the command of the ex- 
pedition William Clark, a younger brother of the 
Indian fighter George Rogers Clark, to whom Jeffer- 
son had vaguely suggested an exploring trip to the 



THE LEWIS AND CLARK EXPEDITION 31 

Pacific in 1783. He was a man of good ability and 
solid character. Upon the return of the expedition 
Jefferson appointed him superintendent of Indian 
affairs for Louisiana. He died in 1838 at the age 
of sixty-eight. 

20. Personnel of the Expedition. — Both Lewis and 
Clark had served in the army and for their followers 
they chose in the main men of the military type who 
were inured to hardship and obedience. Eighteen sol- 
diers were enlisted from the western posts. Nine hunters 
from Kentucky, brave young men loyal and true, 
also joined. Clark took along his negro servant, and 
these men with one exception went through to the 
Pacific and returned. The exception was Sergeant 
Charles Floyd who died on the way up the Missouri, 
where Sioux City now stands. His companions buried 
him near the river. The party also included two 
French interpreters who were familiar with Indian 
languages and customs. Up the Missouri as far as the 
Mandan Villages, sixteen other soldiers and watermen 
accompanied the expedition, but at that point they 
were sent back. 

21. Beginning of the Expedition. — ^Toward winter 
in 1803 the party was assembled at St. Louis and went 
into camp on the Illinois shore at the mouth of the 
River DuBois.^^ Until spring Captain Clark passed 
the time building boats and arranging the minute 

'^Jefferson's negotiations with Napoleon had already resulted in the 
sale of Louisiana to the United States, but the formal transfer was 
delayed until March 9, 1804. Hence St. Louis was virtually a foreign 
city in the fall of 1803 and hardly suitable for the winter quarters of 
a party under American command. 



32 THE STORY OI^ OREGON 

details of the trip, while Lewis diligently gathered what- 
ever information he could obtain from traders and 
trappers about the route up the Missouri. They knew 
the river pretty well as far as the villages of the Man- 
dan Indians, but not beyond. On the 14th of May, 
1804, the expedition finally embarked and began its 
voyage up the Missouri traveling in three boats, a 
rather large one with twenty-two oars, and two small 
craft of which the first was rowed with seven oars and 
the other with six. On the eleventh day of the jour- 
ney, May 25th, they passed La Charette where Daniel 
Boone the famous pioneer had made his home on the 
outskirts of civihzation.-^ By June 5th they had reached 
the mouth of the Kansas River, and just a month after 
starting they passed the Platte. At both these rivers 
they met parties of fur traders coming down from the 
interior, some of them bringing great quantities of 
beaver. Thus the invasion of the plains and the 
Rocky Mountains by the white trappers had already 
begun, but fifty years were to elapse before their vic- 
tory over the desert and the Indians would be com- 
plete.^* Carrying out Jefferson's instructions to cul- 

'^La Charette was a settlement near the mouth of Femme Osage 
Creek, about 45 miles by water above St. Louis. Daniel Boone set- 
tled there in the spring of 1799 with his family. The Spaniards gave 
him some nine hundred acres of land, but he failed to register his 
title properly and it was lost to him later for some years. In 1810 
Congress finally restored his estate. When Boone was on his way to 
Missouri his old acquaintances asked why he was going so far away. 
"I want more elbow room," was his reply. He found it at La 
Charette, though the tide of emigration finally overflowed him. His 
old age was serene. He died in 1820. 

'^The adventures of these hardy scouts and trappers were related in 




^ 




THE LEWIS AND CI^ARK EXPEDITION 33 

tivate friendship with the Indians, the explorers held 
councils with the chiefs of the neighborhood on the 
east bank of the Missouri not far from the mouth of 
the Platte at the site of the future city of Council 
Bluffs. Thence they pursued their way northward 
through the Dakota country between the monotonous 
banks of the Missouri, the current of the turbid river 
ever powerful and treacherous, the scenery almost 
the same day after day for almost four months longer. 
Then at the end of October they reached the villages 
of the Mandan Indians and laid by for the winter. 

22. The Winter Among the Mandans. — The Man- 
dans were a kindly people well disposed toward the 
whites and famiHar with traders and trappers. Lewis 
and Clark built a primitive log fort here and passed 
the time till spring as best they could. The leaders 
were busy providing for the party, inquiring about 
the country to the west and preparing their reports 
for the President. The men found not a little diver- 
sion in sharing the sports of the Indians. Among 
other incidents which broke the tedious sameness of 
the dreary winter months was a visit by some British 
fur traders from the north, agents of the great North- 
west Company, which then as always was alert to learn 
everything touching its commercial interests. Doubt- 
less they sent back a tale to Montreal which hastened 

popular form in the "Dime Novel" literature which was widely read 
by young men as late as 1870, and doubtless played its part in stimu- 
lating emigration westward. The dime novel finally gave way to the 
"Cowboy Story" just as the trapper was replaced by the cattleman 
on the range. 



34 THE STORY OI^ OREGON 

the forward movement of the eager monopoly toward 
the Pacific. 

23. From the Mandans to the Shoshones. — Leaving 
the hospitable Mandans on April 7, 1805, the party 
struck westward following the course of the upper 
Missouri through a country which no longer wearied 
them by its monotony. The route now lay through 
territory which had never been explored by whites. 
The charm of mystery and the excitement of danger 
attended every step of the way. All through the 
Dakota country they had seen vast herds of buffaloes, 
now they encountered the ferocious grizzly bear, the 
terror of the mountains. Steadily forging westward 
they passed the mouth of the Yellowstone and the 
great falls of the Missouri and on the twelfth of August, 
1805, Captain Lewis stood on the height which divides 
the Atlantic from the Pacific slope and crossed a clear 
stream of icy water flowing toward the Columbia. 
Not long afterward they encountered the Shoshone 
Indians who supplied them with horses for the long 
and difficult overland trail to the Columbia. Boats 
could not be used on this section of the journey be- 
cause the rivers raged through abysmal canyons along 
the steep ocean ward slope of the mountains. 

24. Sacajawea. — Their welcome among the Sho- 
shones was made warmer by Sacajawea, the wife of 
Charboneau, one of their interpreters, who had joined 
the party at the Mandan villages. Sacajawea was a 
Shoshone whom the Mandans had taken captive in 
her girlhood and her brother happened to be one of 
the leading chiefs of her people when Lewis and Clark 



THE IvEWIS AND CLARK EXPEDITION 37 

came among them. There was great joy over her 
return after so many years and naturally she was able 
to secure many favors for the explorers. From the 
Shoshone country the party followed the Lolo Trail 
across the Bitter Root Mountains to the mouth of the 
North Foi-k of the Clearwater River, which they reached 
in October, 1805. 

25. From the Shoshones to the Ocean. — This part 
of the journey was beset with many hardships. The 
way had to be explored almost step by step, the moun- 
tain sides were steep and rocky, the deep canyons dan- 
gerous to cross, while all the time the men were suffer- 
ing from hunger. When, on September 20th, they 
finally came to a hospitable village of Nez Perces In- 
dians, it is not surprising that the famished travelers 
overate. Even Captain Clark made himself sick at 
the feast and had to wait a day or two to recover. At 
the mouth of the North Fork of the Clearwater the 
party built five canoes. In these they embarked on 
the 7th of October, leaving their horses with the kindly 
Nez Perces, and began the voyage down the Clearwater 
to the Lewis or Snake, thence down the Lewis to the 
Columbia, and finally down the Columbia to the Ocean. 
This part of the journey was completed in just a month. 
On the 7th of November, 1805, they heard the breakers 
on the Columbia bar and looked out upon the wide 
ocean. Their great historic enterprise was accom- 
plished. 

26. The Return. — Three miles from the mouth of 
Lewis and Clark River, a little stream which flows into 
Young's Bay near Astoria, the party built a shelter 



38 THE STORY OF OREGON 

from the winter rains, naming it Fort Clatsop, and 
there passed the time not without hardship until the 
23rd of March, 1806, when they set out homeward. 
The return trip was rich in excitement and discovery, 
but no serious mishap befell the adventurers and in the 
mild days toward the end of September ,^^ just six 
months from the time when they left the Pacific, they 
reached St. Louis, having completed with admirable 
ability and success one of the crowning achievements 
of history. 

27. Results of the Expedition. — In subsequent ne- 
gotiations with England for the possession of the 
Oregon country the Lewis and Clark expedition gave 
the United States firm standing ; it confirmed our claim 
against Spain for the parallel of forty-two degrees as 
the northern boundary of California, and above all, 
it aroused a lively interest throughout the nation in 
the land beyond the Rocky Mountains. Although the 
journal of the expedition was not published before 
1 8 14, still accounts were printed immediately and 
widely read. There is no doubt that Jefferson's great 
enterprise turned the American spirit of pioneering 
adventure strongly toward the farther West. This 
trend of national feeling never died out but constantly 
increased. It led to the formation of fur-trading 
companies, it incited parties of settlers to push deeper 
and deeper into the country beyond the Mississippi, 

=»The date was September 23, 1806. The party had been on the 
way, going and returning, two years and a half. The student should 
read some full account of this remarkable expedition, such as " First 
Across the Continent" by Noah Brooks. 



THE LEWIS AND CI.ARK EXPEDITION 39 

and it finally culminated in a steady tide of emigra- 
tion which made Oregon an inseparable part of the 
Union. 



CHAPTER IV 

John Jacob Astor's Colony 

28. The Columbia Indians. — Lewis and Clark found 
the banks of the Columbia fairly well populated with 
Indians, but they were filthy and poverty stricken. 
Their principal food was fish either fresh or dried which 
they varied by devouring dogs and relished with wa- 
patoes and berries. ^'^ Their clothing was but scanty, 
and beyond the preparation of food they had no in- 
dustry except basket weaving. With savages of this 
low type there was small hopes of establishing trade 
at once; still it was possible that they might be edu- 
cated to better things and taught to desire some of the 
conveniences or joys of the white men. In that case 
they might be stimulated to trap the beaver which 
abounded in the tributaries of the Columbia, par- 
ticularly about the head waters of the Willamette, 
and thus a profitable exchange might grow up. Fol- 
lowing their instructions from Jefferson, Lewis and 
Clark described the condition of the Columbia Indians. 
Learning of the possibilities of trade with them, 
John Jacob Astor, a famous New York merchant, 

"The wapato is the tuberous root of a water plant. It was common 
in the shallow waters of the Columbia flats until the carp was intro- 
duced. This useless and destructive fish almost eradicated the wapato 
and for a time made the wild ducks which fed on them too scarce to 
please the hunters. The squaws gathered wapatoes by wading out 
into the shallow water and uprooting them with their toes. 



JOHN JACOB ASTOR'S COLONY 41 

organized a magnificent plan to combine the fur busi- 
ness of the Northwest Coast with that of the Missis- 
sippi Valley, under his own control. 

29. Astor's Previous History. — Mr. Astor had been 
engaged in the fur trade through Montreal for a long 
time before the return of Lewis and Clark, and his 
acute and searching intelligence had mastered all its 
secrets. He understood how the voyagers collected 
the furs from the hunting Indians in the remote forests 
and transported them by canoe to the posts of the 
Northwest Company scattered over the vast territory 
between the head waters of the Mississippi and the 
Arctic Ocean and stretching westward far beyond the 
summit of the Rocky Mountains. ^^ From the solitary 
posts in the wilderness the furs were collected at cen- 
tral stations and thence every year transported to Mon- 
treal whence they were distributed to the markets of 
the world. Astor had hitherto been merely a dis- 
tributor. He now aspired to become the rival and 
perhaps the conqueror of the Northwest Company. 
At any rate he planned to forestall it along the Mis- 
souri and Columbia and exclude it from the trade of 
Louisiana and the Northwest Coast. 

30. Astor's Great Project. — The first step in the 
execution of his vast enterprise was to organize the 
American Fur Company^^ through which he planned 

^'By 1813 the Northwest Company was building forts in eastern 
Washington. 

^^The American Fur Company was organized in 1808, two years 
after the return of Lewis and Clark. The connection of events was 
therefore close. In the same year, 1808, Mr. Henry, an agent of this 
company, established Fort Henry on the Snake River (more properly 



42 THE STORY OF OREGON 

to control the fur trade of the country from the Great 
Lakes to the headwaters of the Missouri. Naturally 
the central post for this company would be St. Louis, 
since to that city the furs could move down stream 
from the head waters of the Platte, the Kansas, the 
Missouri and the Mississippi. The American Fur Com- 
pany, in Astor's imperial imagination, was to rule the 
eastern half of his commercial realm. To rule the 
western half, the country from the summit of the 
Rocky Mountains to the Pacific, he established a post 
at the mouth of the Columbia. Strategetically the situa- 
tion of this post was as excellent as that of St. Louis. 
The trade of a great interior region would reach it by 
merely following the course of the Snake, the Clark, 
the Columbia and the Willamette rivers with their 
lesser tributaries. By seizing the key positions at the 
mouths of the Missouri and Columbia rivers and estab- 
lishing a continuous line of posts along the inland waters 
up the Missouri and down the Columbia, Astor planned 
to control the fur trade of the continent from the Great 
Lakes to the Pacific, and he planned well. His project 
failed through the imbecility or treachery of his sub- 
ordinates and not through inherent defect. 

31. Founding of Astoria. — To execute that part of 
his project which related to the Pacific Coast and the 
Columbia River, Astor organized, in June, 1810, the 
Pacific Fur Company. He provided the entire capital 
for the company and held half of its one hundred 
shares of stock. The remaining shares were equally 

Lewis River), See Schafer's judicious remark upon the name of this 
river. He consistently calls it Lewis as everybody ought. 



JOHN JACOB ASTOR'S COLONY 43 

divided among his partners. ^^ These liberal terms 
were made in order to attract to the new company a 
number of the ablest members of the Canadian North- 
west Company. The attempt was successful. Several 
of Astor's partners and many of his minor employees 
were men who had transferred their services if not their 
allegiance from the Canadian to the American enter- 
prise. He determined to send his first party to the 
mouth of the Columbia by sea around Cape Horn. It 
set sail from New York September 6, 1810, in the ill- 
fated ship Tonquin under the cantankerous Captain 
Thorn^'' who enlivened the long voyage by incessant 
quarreling with his Canadian passengers. ^"^ When the 
mouth of the Columbia was reached, March 22, 181 1, 
a storm was raging and the breakers on the bar terri- 
fied the sailors. A wiser captain would have waited 
for fair weather, but Thorn sacrificed seven men to his 
impatience by sending them out in the ship's boat to 
sound the channel among the breakers. Two days 
later, just at nightfall, the Tonquin passed the bar in 
safety, though the wind still blew a tempest, and the 
next morning she sailed farther up the channel and 
found a secure anchorage. The men selected a site 

^^For the first five years Astor was to bear all the loss and divide 
the profits with his associates. W. P. Hunt of New Jersey, one of 
the partners, was appointed agent for the first five years and was to 
reside at the headquarters on the Pacific coast. The particulars are 
given in Bancroft. 

^*E. W. Wright in his Marine History of the Pacific Northwest 
speaks of Jonathan Thorn as "a headstrong and surly captain." 

^^There were thirty-three of Astor's men on board the "Tonquin." 
Twenty-seven of them were from Canada and twenty had been con- 
nected with the Northwest Company in one capacity or another. 



44 THE STORY OF OREGON 

for their post, named it Astoria in honor of their chief 
partner, and began operations by erecting a storehouse 
and landing the supplies from the Tonquin. On April, 
1 2th, at the spot where the city of Astoria now stands, 
they started to build a rude log fort which was finished 
toward the end of July. 

32. Loss of the Tonquin. — It was part of Mr. Astor's 
wide plan that a supply ship should reach Astoria each 
year by way of Cape Horn, land provisions and trad- 
ing goods for the post, and then proceed along the 
coast northward to collect furs from the Indians. 
Laden with her rich cargo the vessel was then to sail 
for Canton, where the furs would be sold, and taking 
on a new cargo of Chinese goods she would sail for 
home, reaching New York again after a voyage of two 
years. In pursuance of this plan the Tonquin left 
Astoria on June 5th, long before the fort was finished, 
and sailed to the North to trade with the Indians for 
furs. At Gray's Harbor Captain Thorn took on board 
an Indian interpreter. Some two years later this man 
made his way back to Astoria and brought the par- 
ticulars of the terrible catastrophe which befell the 
Tonquin in Clayoquot Harbor, on the coast of Wash- 
ington.^® The savages in this part of the world were 
known to be treacherous and before Captain Thorn 
sailed from New York Astor warned him to beware 
of them. But the foolish captain disregarded all pre- 
cautions. During the first day's barter at Clayoquot 

^^The interpreter is the sole witness. All accounts of the destruction 
of the "Tonquin" are based on the narrative which Franchere gives 
verbatim. The accounts vary only because different writers have 
sought to improve upon the facts by adding picturesque details. 



JOHN JACOB ASTOR'S COLONY 45 

he fell into a rage with one of the chiefs and thrust 
him off the ship. The natural effect of this insult was 
to make the savages furious and when they gathered 
around the vessel the next day in their canoes pretend- 
ing friendship and eagerness to trade, Thorn should 
have known that they were really seeking revenge. 
Some of his men urged him to be on his guard but his 
obstinate conceit was invincible.^' He not only per- 
mitted the Indians to fill the ship's deck and distribute 
themselves as they liked, but he and his men mingled 
with them unarmed. He could not have furthered 
the plot of the angry savages better had he deliberately 
planned to do so. At a certain signal they fell upon 
the helpless crew and captain and slew them all ex- 
cept four men who had climbed to the rigging and 
thence slipped down into the cabin where they ob- 
tained firearms. With guns in their hands these four 
men easily drove the Indians from the vessel. If the 
crew had been armed in the first place as common sense 
required there would have been no massacre on board 
the hapless Tonquin. The four men who cleared the 
deck of the savages put to sea in a boat the next day. 
Some canoes set out in pursuit of them but whether 
they were overtaken and slain or whether they per- 
ished on the open sea, the interpreter never could learn. 
Nobody knows what became of them. When the four 
sailors had rowed away from the Tonquin the Indians 
cautiously approached and discovering no signs of dan- 
ger finally crowded upon the deck. Perhaps five hun- 

^' Captain Thorn's conduct reminds one of Braddock at Fort Du 
Quesne. 



46 THE STORY OF OREGON 

dred of them had gathered on the bloody scene of the 
massacre when suddenly a terrific explosion occurred. 
Either by accident or design the magazine of the Ton- 
quin had been fired and two hundred of the savages 
perished with the ship. The interpreter gave himself 
up as a slave, but two years later his friends at Gray's 
Harbor rescued him, and thus the story of the destruc- 
tion of the Tonquin came to light. 

33. Advance to the Interior. — By July 15, 181 1, 
while the fort at Astoria was still incomplete, a party 
of Astor's men made ready to depart for the interior 
to explore the country and build up trade with the 
Indians, but they were delayed for eight days by a 
visit from David Thompson, the geographer of the 
Northwest Fur Company. Acting for his company 
Mr. Thompson had been busy on the western slope 
of the Rocky Mountains since 1807. He had estab- 
lished posts on the Kootenai, on Lake Pend d'Oreille, 
on Clark's Fork in the Flathead country, and finally 
on the Spokane River. Thus the great monopoly 
was making its way steadily toward the Ocean. The 
arrival of Astor's men at Astoria probably discon- 
certed Thompson's plans for there is little doubt that 
his trip to the mouth of the Columbia was for the pur- 
pose of building a fort at that strategic point. Astor's 
men received him hospitably, though they did not fore- 
go their intention to push forward into the upper coun- 
try because he had been there before them. Eight 
days later the Astor party set out under David Stuart 
and actually built a post on the Okanogan River where 
they carried on a successful trade the next winter. 



JOHN JACOB ASTOR'S COLONY 47 

34. Progress of the Colony. — Upon the whole, things 
went fairly well with Astor's project, and if the War of 
1 812 had not broken out his success would probably 
have been brilliant. Considering the great distance 
of Astoria from New York and the wild, ungovern- 
able character of the men upon whom he had to depend, 
the preliminary mishaps were no more serious than 
might have been expected. The destruction of the Ton- 
quin was nothing more than a miserable incident. It did 
not essentially injure the enterprise. An overland party 
which Astor despatched from St. Louis in March, 181 1, 
under W. P. Hunt, one of his partners, met with terri- 
ble hardships on the journey to Astoria, but most of 
the men finally reached the fort in safety. Hunt him- 
self with some of them arrived in February, 181 2, and 
the others straggled in during the following weeks . The 
party was badly led but not by any means destroyed. 
A little afterward, on May 10, 1812, Mr. Astor's second 
ship, the Beaver, anchored at Astoria with men and 
supplies, which put new heart into the enterprise. 
The preliminary difficulties had been surmounted and 
fortune seemed ready to smile upon the daring adven- 
ture of the New York merchant, when the War of 181 2 
broke out and put the finishing stroke to his hopes. 

35. The Loss of Astoria. — W. P. Hunt was to be 
the managing agent at Astoria for the first five years, 
but when the news reached the fort that war had begun 
between America and Great Britain he was absent on 
a fur-trading expedition and Donald McDougal, one 
of the Canadian partners was in charge. Hunt had 
sailed away in the Beaver on August 4, 181 2, and did 



48 THE STORY OF OREGON 

not return for an entire year. In the meantime agents 
of the Northwest Company haunted the fort and were 
probably more or less actively engaged in tampering 
with the loyalty of the men. They sowed discourage- 
ment and dissensi6n and insisted that a British ship 
would soon appear for the capture of the post. Natu- 
rally the sympathies of Astor's Canadian partners were 
with the British. Both patriotism and old associa- 
tions inclined them to yield to the solicitations of the 
Northwest Company's emissaries, and by the time 
Hunt returned to Astoria, August 4, 1813, they had 
resolved to abandon the enterprise. He sailed away 
again in search of some vessel to rescue the goods and 
furs and did not return until February 28, 18 14. While 
he was away the weak or treacherous partners of Astor 
sold all his property to the Northwest Company and a 
number of them reentered its service. On the 12th 
of December, 18 14, a British sloop of war took pos- 
session of the place and the name Astoria was changed 
to Fort George. Thus ended Astor's courageous enter- 
prise at the mouth of the Columbia. Had he been able 
to secure loyal subordinates there can be little doubt 
that his success in the end would have been mag- 
nificent. He selected the most skillful men he could 
find, but at the critical moment they played him false. 
The result was that the profits of the fur trade in the 
Oregon country went to the British for many years to 
come. 



CHAPTER V 
Rule of the Fur Company 

36. AstoriaResftored to the United States. — For the next 
twenty years after the ruin of Astor's project the his- 
tory of Oregon is the history of the operations of the 
Northwest and Hudson Bay Fur Companies in that 
region. Under the terms of the Treaty of Ghent which 
closed the War of 1812, the United States demanded 
the restoration of Astoria and after some diplomatic 
delay and parleying the British government per- 
mitted an American commissioner, J. B. Prevost, to 
run up the stars and stripes at the fort on October 6, 
1818. This in form at least restored the sovereignty 
of the country to the United States but it made no 
difference in its practical control. That had been in 
the hands of the Northwest Company from the day 
its agents bought out Astor's partners and it remained 
there still. 

37. Settlement Deferred. — Even the formal restora- 
tion of the sovereignty of Oregon was soon made nuga- 
tory, for on October 20, 18 18, the United States and 
Great Britain concluded a treaty which put off the 
settlement of their conflicting claims^^ for ten years 

^®The British laid stress on the explorations of Vancouver and 
Broughton and the fact that Broughton had taken formal possession 
of the country along the Columbia. The Americans, with greater 
force, emphasized the discovery of the Columbia by Gray, and the 
fact that he had shown Broughton the way into the river. Our claim 



50 THE STORY OF OREGON 

and provided in the meantime for a joint occupation 
of the country. The question of sovereignty was left 
open and the subjects of both nations were given equal 
rights of trade and settlement in Oregon. ^^ No doubt 
each government expected that its own citizens would 
occupy the country in overwhelming numbers and 
practically decide the question of ownership in that 
way before the treaty of joint occupation expired. 
That did not happen however for many years to come. 
Ten years later, in 1828, the condition of Oregon was 
much the same as in 1818^ and the treaty was renewed 
for another period and only terminated in 1846. 

38. Union of the Fur Companies. — Up to the year 
1 82 1 the attention of the Northwest Company was 
partially diverted from the fur trade to a bitter struggle 
with its older rival, the Hudson Bay Company. The 
contest, which almost amounted to a civil war, im- 
paired the energies of both companies and wasted 
their resources. Wise men on both sides perceived 
the advantages of cooperation instead of ruinous com- 

was strengthened by the consideration that the British had done 
nothing to occupy the Oregon country up to 1811, while we had sent 
out the Lewis and Clark expedition and Astor had estabhshed his 
post at the mouth of the Columbia. Upon the whole the United 
States seems to have yielded a good deal in agreeing to joint occupa- 
tion. 

^^By this treaty the parallel of forty-nine degrees was fixed as the 
boundary between the United States and Canada from Lake of the 
Woods to the Rocky Mountains. From that point westward the 
boundary of course remained unsettled. The British had their hearts 
Bet on the Columbia, the Americans claimed as far north as 54° 40'. 
Spain still had a vague claim to the Oregon country but in 1819 she 
gave up to the United States everything north of 42°, retaining Cali- 
fornia. 



RULE OF THE FUR COMPANY 51 

petition, and in 1821 the two companies were united. 
Before that date the fur trade along the Columbia 
had been conducted mth fair profits, but upon the 
whole rather languidly. Now all was changed. 

39. Dr. McLoughlin Sent to Oregon. — In 1824 the 
new organization, called the Hudson Bay Company, 
sent out Dr. John Mclvoughlin to take charge of its 
business in the Columbia region. This remarkable 
man had a genius for organization and command. 
He was of a resolute character with great kindliness 
of disposition. He never tolerated the slightest dis- 
obedience in his wide domain and yet his subordinates 
seem to have mingled genuine affection with un- 
bounded respect for him.^*' In dealing with the In- 
dians he first of all convinced them of his power to 
enforce his will. When they became submissive, as 
they invariably did, he treated them with a mingling 
of paternal severity and kindness which won their 
hearts and made them the loyal servants of the Com- 
pany. Dr. Mclyoughlin was an excellent man of busi- 
ness and an admirable ruler over the wild country 
which had been assigned to him and the adventurous 
characters who inhabited it, but he was much more 
than a mere man of business. He was a far-sighted 
statesman, enlightened in conduct and liberal in his 
opinions. He developed the fur trade in the Oregon 
country until it became the most profitable part of 
the Company's vast domains. At Vancouver where 

^''His po&ts covered the country from the Umpqua River in the 
south to the extreme headwaters of the Columbia and Snake Rivers in 
the north and east. 



52 THE STORY OF OREGON 

he established his headquarters, he introduced farm- 
ing and stock raising, planted an orchard and built a 
sawmiU and a gristmill. 

40. Settlement Begun. — The ancient policy of the 
Hudson Bay Company forbade men to settle in the 
fur country. It was desired to keep the western 
wilderness forever as a game preserve inhabited only 
by wild Indians and the traders. McLoughlin aban- 
doned this unwise policy. He encouraged a number 
of men who had left the company's service to settle 
in Oregon and aided them to establish farms. ^^ Travel- 
ers, explorers, and men of science were always welcome 
at the Vancouver fort. Even rival traders like Nathan- 
iel Wyeth were received politely, though Dr. McLough- 
lin knew very well how to guard his commercial in- 
terests against their encroachments. Finally, when the 
missionaries began to arrive and the trains of immi- 
grants to follow them, although McLoughlin nmst have 
foreseen the inevitable consequences to the fur busi- 
ness and to British dominion, nevertheless he sold 
them supphes, relieved their distress and encouraged 
them with wise counsel. Dr. McLoughhn was often 
misunderstood by the pioneers and sometimes maligned, 
but the verdict of history will be that he is clearly 
entitled to be called the "Father of Oregon." 

41. Life in Oregon. — Until the arrival of Jason Lee 
with his missionary party in 1834, we must therefore 
think of Oregon as a great game preserve for the Hud- 
son Bay Company. Except for the Indians and 
traders, its forests were solitudes. Its rivers were 

*'They livfd in the neighborhood of Champoeg. 



RUIvE OF THE FUR COMPANY 53 

traveled, only by the canoes which annually bore their 
loads of beaver and other furs to Vancouver, and ex- 
cept for a few white men and half castes who had 
settled on the Willamette above Salem, its fertile 
lands were untilled. The voyageurs who paddled the 
canoes of the company up and down the rivers were a 
picturesque breed of men, worthy predecessors in 
romantic charm to the gold seekers and cowboys. At 
Fort Vancouver life went on with a certain decorum 
which looked much like civilization. The manners 
and conversation at the table were refined, but the 
officers' Indian wives^^ were not permitted to dine with 
their husbands, and it was not till 1832 that a school 
existed for their children."'^ 

"All the white men had Indian wives. The officers at Fort Van- 
couver were married to squaws of either full of half blood. McLough- 
lin'swife was half white. Duncan McDougal, who helped sell out 
Astor at Astoria, was retained in command there by the Northwest 
Company and married the daughter of old Chief Concomly. 

*^In the winter of 1832]John Ball, who came out with Wyeth on his 
first trip, taught school at the fort. Learning their letters must have 
been an odd experience for the little half-breed boys and girls who had 
never done anything but run about and ride ponies. One can believe 
that education would not have made better trappers and traders of 
the boys, but they never got enough of it at Vancouver to injure them. 



CHAPTER VI 

The First Pioneers 

42. Remoteness of Oregon. — Why was it that so 
few American settlers or adventurers disturbed the 
sway of the British fur companies in Oregon from 
1 8 14 to 1834? There were several reasons. The tide 
of American life was steadily surging toward Oregon 
and the Pacific during all that period, but we must 
remember that the great area of the Mississippi Valley 
had to be occupied before the billows could roll farther 
westward. Immigration into this territory was ex- 
tremely rapid but the region was so vast that every- 
body who came found land good and plentiful for many 
years. When at last the best had been selected and 
people began to crowd each other a little in Illinois, 
Indiana, Ohio and Missouri, then the eyes of the ad- 
venturous turned to the remote West and fortune be- 
gan to beckon alluringly from the fertile vales beyond 
the Rocky Mountains. Again, the reader must re- 
member how slowly popular knowledge of Oregon 
grew. Lewis and Clark had told little that could 
attract the homeseeker. Their attention dwelt upon 
the possibilities of trading in furs with the Indians. 
The prospect of making the Columbia region a land of 
farms seemed to them remote and shadowy, if they 
thought of it at all. Besides, they never saw the 
best parts of Oregon. When the unhappy stragglers 



THE FIRST PIONEERS 55 

of W. P. Hunt's party returned to the states they 
brought a tale of woe which was not Ukely to induce 
others to repeat their journey; but the hunters and 
trappers of the land beyond the Mississippi continually 
pressed forward toward Oregon and finally entered it 
both from the south and the east. 

43. Adventures of Jedediah Smith. — As early as 1826 
Jedediah S. Smith with a party of men in the service 
of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company entered the 
country west of Great Salt Lake, discovered the Hum- 
boldt River and crossed the Sierra Nevada Mountains 
into the Sacramento Valley." Here he established a 
camp and returned to Salt Lake the next summer. 
The same summer, 1827, Smith set out with a number 
of companions to return to the Sacramento Valley, 
but on the way the Indians attacked him and slew all 
of the party except himself and two others. The 
three fugitives made their way with incredible 
hardship to the camp in the Sacramento Valley, and 
thence Smith led his men with their valuable store 
of furs northward along the coast to the Umpqua 
River. Here he was again attacked by treacherous 
savages and barely escaped with his life, losing all his 
party but three men. Leaving his property in the 

"In 1822 General W. H. Ashley formed a fur company at St. Louis 
which sent parties into the best beaver districts to trap out the streams. 
Jedediah S. Smith, David Jackson and W. L. Sublette, to whom he 
sold his business in 1826, pursued the same poHcy. Smith made his 
trips for this company. Schafer gives the particulars. Sublette was 
one of the famous characters of the old trapping days. Ashley's men, 
in 1823, discovered the South Pass by which later the Oregon trail 
crossed the mountains. 



56 THE STORY OF OREGON 

hands of the Indians who had captured it, Smith made 
his way to Vancouver. Here, August, 1828, he was 
kindly received by the officials of the Hudson Bay 
Company who despatched a party to the Umpqua to 
punish the Indians and recover his furs. Thomas 
McKay, the leader of the party, fulfilled his mission 
successfully.''^ The furs were brought to Vancouver 
and Smith received some $40,000 for them from the 
Hudson Bay Company. The immediate consequence 
of this adventure was that the Company, perceiving 
how rich in furs the southern country must be, began 
to push their trapping expeditions toward California. 
Smith saw much of the Willamette Valley and undoubt- 
edly told of its beauties wherever he roamed through- 
out the west. 

44. Ewing Young. — In 1832 Ewing Young, a fa- 
mous trapper from Santa Fe, followed Smith's route as 
far north as the Umpqua. At that point he turned 
eastward and crossed the mountains, finally making 
his way back to Calif ornia.^^ These trips opened the 
route between Oregon and California and some use 
was made of it by the pioneers to bring in stock. In 

"Soon after this McKay built a fort for the Hudson Bay Company 
on the Umpqua. It was held by a solitary Frenchman with his Indian 
wife. The Company sent him goods twice a year. Otherwise he had 
no communication with the world, Mrs. Dye tells the circumstances 
in her pleasant way in her book on " Dr. McLoughlin and Old Oregon." 

^''Ewing Young returned to Oregon with a band of horses and a 
small party of men in 1834. The trip was undertaken for the sake of 
Hall J. Kelley who was then on his way to the Columbia. Young be- 
came a noted figure in pioneer history. Pattie's narrative of his trip 
to the Pacific, which was published in 1832, helped stir up interest in 
that part of the world. 




^•. u 



THE OREGON COUNTRY SOUTH OF THE 49th PARALLEL 



THE FIRST PIONEERS 59 

the days of the gold seekers it became a much traveled 
highway. 

45. Difficulties of the Routes to Oregon. — Men like 
Jedediah S. Smith and Ewing Young must have spread 
accounts of Oregon far and wide throughout the west- 
ern country. Moreover, by this time, 1830, the Mis- 
sissippi Valley was populous enough to permit of an- 
other great westward migration, but no leader had 
yet appeared to start the movement, and there were 
other difficulties in the way. Between the fertile strip 
west of the Mississippi and Oregon there was a wide 
stretch of country which was then supposed to be 
desert. Much of it really was desert, and beyond this 
tract lay the mountains over which it was not certain 
that wagons could be taken. The matter of a prac- 
ticable wagon road was very important to the westerner 
who might wish to go to Oregon. Dwelling far from 
the sea, they could not send their goods by water and 
they were loath to leave them behind. In fact they 
would not attempt to go where they could not trans- 
port their belongings. Three trails were ultimately 
opened across the desert and the Rocky Mountains. 
The most northerly one Lewis and Clark had followed, 
but that was out of the question for wagons, while the 
powerful and treacherous Blackfeet Indians, hostile 
finally to the whites, made travel upon it extremely 
hazardous. The Santa Fe Trail which ran from Mis- 
souri southwest to New Mexico led far away from 
Oregon. It was the middle trail, running from In- 
dependence up the Platte River and across the South 
Pass in the mountains, which finally became the great 



60 THE STORY 01? OREGON 

emigrant route. Ashley's trappers discovered the 
South Pass as early as 1823, and in 1830, the next year 
after his misfortunes on the Umpqua, Jedediah S. 
Smith with some companions drove loaded wagons to 
the head of Wind River in the Rocky Mountains and 
brought back word that they could easily have taken 
them over the Pass. It was the gradual opening of a 
practicable wagon road to Oregon which really made 
emigration possible. The progress of wheeled vehicles 
through the mountains was more important in the 
history of Oregon than almost any other series of 
events. Hence it is worth while for the student to 
remember that in 1833 Captain Bonneville actually 
drove wagons through the South Pass along the line 
of the Oregon trail to westward flowing waters. 

46. Bonneville's Enterprise Fails.— Captain Bonne- 
ville's purpose was to invade the Oregon country and 
compete in the fur business with the Hudson Bay 
Company on its own ground. Beginning his adven- 
turous career as a fur trader in 1832, he spent three 
years in the region of the Lewis River (Snake River) 
and pushed his explorations as far as Fort Walla 
Walla, which is now called Wallula. But Captain 
Bonneville had to contend with the wiles of both the 
independent American traders and the thoroughly 
organized agents of the Hudson Bay Company, and 
between them they m.ade short work of his commer- 
cial ambitions. His enterprise failed completely.*' 

47. Wyeth and Kelley.— The efforts of Nathaniel 

•■'The student will find it interesting to read Washington Irving'e 
"Adventures of Captain Bonneville." 



THE FIRST PIONEERS 61 

J. Wyeth to carry on the fur trade in Oregon also 
failed, but he is a more notable figure in history 
than Captain Bonneville because of his connection 
with Jason Lee. Wyeth made two expeditions to 
Oregon for the purpose of trade, and both were futile. 
He seems to have been a man of a romantic disposi- 
tion who plunged into western adventure without 
much real knowledge of its conditions and hardships. 
His interest in the Pacific Coast was awakened by the 
writings of Hall J. Kelley, a Boston school-teacher, 
whose mind became a little unbalanced with excite- 
ment over the Oregon controversy with Great Britain, 
and who kept his schemes of occupation and settlement 
before the public for many years beginning with 1815. 
He gathered a great deal of information about Oregon, 
organized a society to promote its colonization, and in 
spite of his vagaries, interested many persons of con- 
sequence in his plans. ^^ Finally, Kelley made a trip 
to the Pacific Coast which was as full of adventure as 

*^In 1832 Kelley set out from Boston to make a trip to Oregon, the 
land of promise. He chose to go by way of Mexico and thence through 
California where he fell in with Ewing Young in the summer of 1834. 
Young went with him to Oregon taking along about a dozen men 
and a band of horses. On the Umpqua Kelley fell ill of intermittent 
fever, but La Framboise of the Hudson Bay Company treated him 
with quinine and venison broth and soon cured him. Arriving at 
Vancouver Kelley found that Young and himself had been posted 
by the Spaniards as horse thieves. Dr. McLoughlin could therefore 
hardly receive him on the footing of a gentleman, though he pro- 
vided for Kelley's necessities, and in 1836 sent him back to Boston, 
which he never ought to have left, by way of the Sandwich Islands. 
W^yeth was at Vancouver during this period but he paid no attention 
to Kelley. This seems somewhat ungrateful seeing that it was 
Kelley's writings which started Wyeth westward. 



62 THE STORY OF OREGON 

the most romantic heart could desire, but it did not 
lead to any definite results. 

48. Wyeth's First Expedition.— Nathaniel J. Wyeth 
began operations in much the same way as Astor did. 
He sent his goods for the Indian trade around Cape 
Horn and set out with a small party to go to Oregon 
overland and meet the vessel at Vancouver. The ship^^ 
sailed in the fall of 1831. Wyeth and his men set out 
the next spring going first to Baltimore by water and 
thence by the new Baltimore and Ohio Railroad west- 
ward for sixty miles. Down the Ohio River to St. 
Louis they went by steamer, and in the same way up 
the Missouri as far as Independence, where the Oregon 
Trail struck northwestward for the Platte. Even then 
this trail was pretty well traveled as far as Green River. 
At Independence Wyeth fell in with William Sublette, 
the famous trapper, who was starting for the moun- 
tains with sixty-two men. He guided the party safely 
across the plains but in the mountains the men fell 
sick from the hardships they had to endure. Disap- 
pointed and forlorn they grew mutinous. Some de- 
serted, but with the eleven men who remained true to 
him Wyeth pushed on through starvation and hostile 
Indians to Vancouver. In a wretched condition he 

^^Wyeth's ship was wrecked in the Sandwich Islands. His party 
consisted of his brother, his cousin and nineteen workingmen of 
various trades. They prepared for the expedition in grand style, 
holding regular drills, dressing in uniform and carrying a fine outfit of 
weapons. Before leaving for Baltimore, Wyeth held a Wild West 
show in Boston Harbor for ten days. The expedition was a holiday 
affair almost to the base of the Rocky Mountains. Then it took on a 
more serious aspect and all but eleven of the bold adventurers went 
back home. 



THE FIRST PIONEERS 63 

reached the fort October 24, 1832. Although Wyeth 
came as a rival in trade Dr. McLoughlin received him 
with boundless hospitality. Of course he could not 
buy furs without his goods, which had been lost with 
his ship, but he studied the conditions of the country, 
laid new plans, and in 1833 returned to Boston filled 
with the determination to undertake another expedi- 
tion under better auspices. ^° He was now resolved to 
combine salmon fishing with the fur trade, and he in- 
duced the Boston merchants who had formerly aided 
him to fit out another ship for Oregon. This vessel, 
famous in the annals of the Pacific Coast, was named 
the May Dacre.^^ She sailed late in the year 1833, 
while Wyeth set out overland on his second expedition 
the following March. 

"°Dr. McLoughlin must have known that Wyeth 's trip was the be- 
ginning of the end of the British monopoly in Oregon. Other parties 
were certain to follow and agricultural settlement must speedily drive 
out the beaver. Still he met Wyeth as he did the later immigrants 
with noble hospitality, though he never forgot the interest of the Com- 
pany. Some of Wyeth 's eleven men stayed in Oregon and took up 
farms. 

**Wyeth was a man of vigorous physique and engaging personality 
who won confidence wherever he went. He had no difficulty in ob- 
taining the ship and supplies for this second expedition nor in raising 
men to follow him. 



CHAPTER VII 

The Mission at Salem 

49. The Nez Perces Send for the Bible. — At about 
the time when Wyeth made his first trip to the Columbia 
one of those seemingly unimportant events occurred in 
the West which now and then alter the aspect of human 
affairs and determine the course of history. In 1831, 
or perhaps a year later, the Nez Perce Indians for some 
unknown reason decided to send four of their leading 
men to St. Louis to ask for the white man's "Book of 
Heaven." It is quite likely that the Indians had 
learned from the wandering trappers something of the 
beauties of the Christian religion, coupled with such criti- 
cisms upon their own primitive rites as those freespoken 
men would not hesitate to make. The Nez Perces were 
a comparatively intelligent tribe with vigorous bodies 
and active brains. Doubtless their curiosity was 
awakened. They were eager to learn the way to 
heaven which the trappers must have pictured to them 
as an extremely attractive place. They remembered 
General Clark from the time, nearly thirty years be- 
fore, when he was in their country on his expedition 
to the coast, and of course they also knew that he was 
then the government's Indian agent at St. Louis. 
Hence it was natural enough for them to send to him 
for a copy of the Bible and some one to explain it to 
them. 




REVEREND JASON LEE 



The: mission A^t salem 65 

60. Consequences of the Visit of the Nez Perces. — 

The four messengers from the Nez Perces reached St. 
Louis safely and were kindly received by General Clark. 
When three of them fell sick Clark took them into his 
house and cared for them,^^ but in spite of his ministra- 
tions two died. The other two spent the winter in St. 
Louis and in the spring went back to their own country 
without a missionary, but they had kindled a fire behind 
them in the minds of men which was not to be quenched 
until Oregon had been settled by civilized immi grants. ^^ 
Christianity is emphatically a missionary religion 
The zeal of the churches to spread the gospel among 
the heathen may sometimes slumber but it never dies. 
The news of these Indians and their pathetic errand 
roused it to strenuous activity. The churches had 
heard a Macedonian call and missionaries with holy 
zeal took up the cross and bore it among the western 
savages. Civilization and liberty attended their foot- 
steps. The Methodists were the first to act. G. P. 
Disosway published an account of the four Nez Perces 
in the Methodist papers in February, 1833. In March, 
just as Wyeth was starting back home from Vancouver, 
President Wilbur Fiske of Wilbraliam College, issued 
one of those trumpet calls for men which have never 

*'G. P. Disosway, the man who gave the money to found the Metho- 
dist missionary society in 1819, saw them lying sick in Clark's house 
and talked the matter over with Clark. Disosway sent the news of 
the visit of the Indians and their errand far and wide. 

"They seem to have returned by the Lewis and Clark route. One 
more died at the mouth of the Yellowstone. Catlin, the Scotch trav- 
eler and artist, went with them for two thousand miles of the way 
and painted their pictures which are reproduced in Atwood's "Con- 
querors.'' 



66 THE STORY OF OREGON 

failed to enlist new volunteers in the army of the 
martyrs. "Money shall be forthcoming," he wrote. 
''All we want is the men. Who will go?" 

51. Jason Lee Appointed Missionary Superintendent 
and Joins Wyeth. — The first volunteer was Jason Lee, 
Canadian by birth, ordained to preach in the Methodist 
church in the United States. He was a man of strong 
body, gifted with great common sense, burning elo- 
quence and the power to lead and control men. Ap- 
pointed Superintendent of the Flathead missions in 
July, 1833, Lee spent the rest of the summer traveling 
and preaching in the cause. Meanwhile, almost as if 
providential forethought had arranged it, Wyeth was 
fitting out his second expedition in Boston. On De- 
cember 13th, Lee met him at Cambridge and, taking 
advantage of opportunity, agreed with Wyeth to ship 
his goods in the May Dacre and to join his overland 
party in the spring. ^^ There is no doubt that Lee had 
large plans from the outset, intending to make his mis- 
sion a nucleus for settlement and American dominion. 
With the zeal of the missionary he combined the far- 
sighted wisdom of the statesman.^^ In the middle 

"Schafer says the May Dacre "went down the coast in the fall." 
She did not actually set sail on her voyage until after December 13. 
The train of coincidences in preparation for Lee's mission seems half 
miraculous. First came Wyeth's former trip in which he learned 
western ways and became an accomplished guide and plainsman, 
knowing the trail, the Indians, and places for feed and water. The 
missionary zeal of the churches awakens as if to take advantage of 
Wyeth 's experience, and Jason Lee meets him in the nick of time to 
join fortunes with him. For those who see design in human affairs 
was there ever a more striking example? 

^^Jason Lee was keenly alive to the importance of money even to 
a missionary. He raised a large sum by his sermons. 



THE MISSION AT SALEM 67 

of March, 1834, when he joined Wyeth at Indepen- 
dence the party was assembUng.^^ In April it started 
across the plains following the route which became 
later the Oregon Trail. It was a gay cavalcade con- 
sisting of seventy men and two hundred and fifty 
horses, well provided for and well led. Wyeth was 
himself by this time a seasoned plainsman, while his 
old friend Milton Sublette, a trapper of long experience 
and many adventures, was also of the band. Jason 
Lee with his fellow missionaries kept somewhat on 
the outskirts of the worldly party sedately driving 
their cattle." Naturally Jason Lee could not help 
preaching to Wyeth's wild followers, and at first they 
rather resented his rebukes, but as time passed and 
they began to understand his wide humanity and feel 
his deep sincerity they ceased to ridicule him. Re- 
spect and even affection took the place of rancor, and 
the conscientious missionary became a favorite with 
the free plainsmen. 

52. From Independence to Fort Hall. — Striking 
west from Independence the party crossed the Kansas 
River on the sixth day out, then turning northward 
and riding through plains covered with thrifty grasses, 
on the twentieth day they came to the South Fork of 

^'Lee had four companions, his nephew Daniel Lee, who was also a 
preacher and apparently a good one, and three lay brethren, Cyrus 
Shepherd, P. L. Edwards and C. M. Walker. 

^^Lee took his cattle as far as Walla Walla but there, since the 
season was late and feed scarce, he traded them to the Hudson Bay 
Company. At Vancouver Dr. McLoughHn loyally turned over eight 
cows to Lee and sent men to help him drive them to Salem. The 
Hudson Bay Company, however, disliked to sell breeding animals 
to the settlers. 



68 THE STORY OF OREGON 

the Platte whose broad but shallow stream they fol- 
lowed for six days more over a level prairie where the 
buffalo grazed in numberless thousands. The trail 
now crossed the South Fork of the Platte by a ford 
and struck through a desert waste to the northern 
branch which it followed on the southern side, over a 
country of rugged hills past Scott's Bluff, where in the 
older days an unhappy trader falling sick was deserted 
by his companions and left to die; then through great 
forests it ran to the banks of the Laramie Fork where 
Fort Laramie was afterward to stand. On the ist of 
June, Wyeth with Jason Lee still in his train, crossed 
the Laramie, and a week later, June 7, 1834, after pass- 
ing the gloomy Black Hills, the party came down into 
a barren plain where sage brush grew. Two days 
later they bade farewell to the Platte which they had 
followed so long and traversed a forlorn waste to In- 
dependence Butte on the banks of the Sweetwater. 
On the granite face of this landmark famous trappers 
had chiseled their names, William Sublette and his 
brother Milton, the loyal friend of Wyeth, Bonneville, 
and others of the adventurous tribe. Some of Wyeth 's 
party climbed the granite cliff and added their names 
to the enduring roll. Looking ninety miles to the 
northwest they could see the white peaks of the Wind 
River Mountains piercing the sky and inviting them 
onward, but it was not till the 14th of June that they 
took up the trail again, for on the Sweetwater there was 
pasture for the hungry horses and rest for the men, 
while thenceforward as far as the Sandy River, which 
was their next station, there was neither grass nor 



THE MISSION AT SALEM 69 

water.^^ Down the Sandy they traveled to the Green 
River, reaching it June 19th, and came to the "rendez- 
vous," a fertile valley sunk in the desolate plain where 
grass grew luxuriantly, buffalo, antelope and elk 
abounded and the streams were full of fish. This was 
a great meeting place of trappers. Wyeth's party 
found many others there before them and until July 2nd 
they lingered in the lovely nook, while there was trad- 
ing, carousing and wild jollity among the men. Since 
drink was plentiful Jason Lee must have witnessed 
scenes at Green River which saddened his heart." 
Traveling northwest from Green River Wyeth en- 
countered, July 9, Thomas McKay, an agent of the 
Hudson Bay Company, who was hunting with a 
party of Canadians and Indians. ^^ The next day he 
fell in with Bonneville and his men who had been on 
a long trip and were resting in camp. They had now 
reached a section of the wilderness where enterprise 
was active. On July 14 they came to the Lewis 
(Snake) River. Here Wyeth decided to erect a fort, 
which he called Fort Hall. While Wyeth's men were 
at work on the fort, which was a substantial structure, 

^^On the Sweetwater Jason Lee wrote a letter home which was 
printed in the Christian Advocate. It read to the wondering Metho- 
dists Uke a message from the other world. The Sweetwater seemed 
far away to easterners in those days. Perhaps to many of them it is 
not much nearer now. 

"The usual performances at the rendezvous were something fright- 
ful. Bancroft says that on this occasion there was the " usual mixture 
of mirth and murder brooding, of obstreperous jollity, whooping, 
roaring and wolfish snarling." It was no place for a tenderfoot. 

^"McKay's Indians were pleased to learn that Lee was a missionary. 
To show their good will they gave him two horses. 



70 THE STORY OF OREGON 

Thomas McKay visited the place, perhaps with an eye 
to business/^ and on Sunday, July 27th, two of his wild 
followers ran a horse race in which one of them lost his 
life. At the funeral of this unhappy man Jason Lee 
preached his first sermon west of the Rocky Mountains. 
53. From Fort Hall to Vancouver. — On July 30, 
1834, the missionaries left Wyeth at Fort Hall and 
keeping company with Thomas McKay drove their 
cattle straight through to Walla Walla, which they 
reached by September i. Wyeth lingered to see the 
fort completed and the United States flag raised over 
it, August 5th; then, on the next day, he again took the 
trail westward. At Walla Walla he rejoined Lee and 
his party, who had disposed of their cattle to the Pludson 
Bay people and had engaged a barge to carry themselves 
down the river to Vancouver. Wyeth took passage with 
the others and all arrived safely at Vancouver by Sep- 
tember 16, 1834. Jason Lee preceded the rest of the 
party by a few days and was waiting for them with 
Dr. McLoughlin in front of the fort when they arrived. 
Thus ended the memorable journey which began the 
colonization of Oregon.*^ 

^^The Hudson Bay Company forthwith built a rival fort at Boise 
which captured all of Wyeth's trade. 

^^The student should follow Wyeth and Lee across the continent 
with a map of the Oregon Trail before him. This was one of the great 
historic highways along which empire has traveled. Lee escaped the 
worst part of the trail, from the Walla Walla River to The Dalles, by 
taking to the water. The hardships of the pioneers were most severe 
near The Dalles, since they reached it when the season was late, the 
rains were coming on, their beasts were worn, their wagons broken 
down, and their food almost gone. By giving timely assistance at this 
critical place Dr. McLoughlin saved many lives from time to time. 



THE MISSION AT SALEM 71 

54. Wyeth's Second Failure. — Wyeth's ship, the 
May Dacre, entered the Columbia the day after his 
party reached Vancouver. This was of course a lucky 
coincidence since it enabled both Wyeth and the mis- 
sionaries to proceed with their plans without delay. 
Wyeth after exploring the country around the mouth of 
the Willamette fixed upon Wapato, or Sauvie's, Island 
for the site of his trading post and at a spot near the 
the southern end of the island , he began a structure which 
he named Fort William. This fort was completed in the 
winter of 1834-5, together with several good log houses. 
Wyeth raised the United States flag over the post 
when it was done. In all ways he acted like an ener- 
getic, capable, patriotic man of affairs, but his enter- 
prise was not successful. Dr. McLoughlin was ex- 
tremely polite to him, but he used his great influence 
with the Indians to hold their trade for the Hudson 
Bay Company. The salmon fishery was less lucrative 
than Wyeth had expected. In spite of all his efforts 
his enterprise languished. By the summer of 1836 
he had broken up his establishment on Sauvie's Island. 
He then returned to Boston and finally sold all his 
possessions in the Oregon country, including Fort 
Hall, to the Hudson Bay Company. 

55. Founding of Lee's Mission. — The plans of 
the missionaries had a far different outcome. Ever 
since he entered Oregon Jason Lee had doubtless been 
vigilantly seeking a suitable site for his station. He 
had been commissioned to preach to the tribes on the 
upper Columbia and the Lewis Rivers, but in his own 



72 THE STORY OF OREGON 

mind agriculture was inseparably linked with the suc- 
cess of the gospel, and in those apparently desert wastes 
he could at that time see no prospect of fruitful fields."^ 
He therefore kept his mind open as to the choice of a 
site until he had consulted with Dr. McLoughlin and had 
explored the lower part of the Willamette Valley. In 
this charming region he found that Indians were numer- 
ous and that their souls were at least as much in need 
of salvation as those of the Nez Perces. He saw that 
the situation was almost perfect for a farming colony 
and he could not discern without further acquaintance 
how hopelessly indolent, diseased and worthless the 
valley Indians were. Jason Lee therefore altered his 
original plans and chose for the site of his mission 
a spot in the Willamette Valley not far from where 
Salem now stands.®" To this place the missionaries 
transferred their goods from the May Dacre and forth- 
with began the erection of a house from squared logs. 
By the first of November they were under shelter 
from the autumn rains. 

56. Oregon in 1834. — Since the real settlement of 
Oregon by Americans begins with this missionary 
colony on the Willamette, it will be well to pause here 
and review the condition of the country. Oregon was 
at that time completely controlled by the Hudson 
Bay Company whose efficient head factor was Dr. 

"Irrigation and wheat farming have transformed this desolate 
region into a productive empire, but Jason Lee could not foresee the 
distant future. He chose wisely in the circumstances. 

"It was two miles above Joseph Gervais's farm, on the east bank 
of the Willamette, and sixty miles from its mouth, 



THE MISSION AT SALEM 73 

John McLoughlin. The principal post of the monopoly 
was at Vancouver, but it had numerous other posts situ- 
ated at advantageous points from the Umpqua to the 
extreme upper tributaries of the Columbia and Lewis 
Rivers. From all these places the harvest of furs was 
brought annually to Vancouver and thence sent away 
by sea. It was the policy of the Hudson Bay Com- 
pany to make this state of things perpetual since set- 
tlement would naturally interfere with the production 
of furs. Still the benign character of Dr. McLoughlin 
did not permit him to adhere rigorously to this bar- 
barous policy, and, somewhat contrary to the rules of 
the Company, he had encouraged several French 
Canadians, old servants who wished to lead a peaceful 
life, to take up farms on French Prairie^^ and had sup- 
pHed them with tools, cattle and seed. Here they 
dwelt in idyllic serenity, not very industrious, knowing 
nothing of the world, content with their Indian wives, 
their half-breed children and their slaves. Living 
on French Prairie at the time of the arrival of Jason 
Lee there were also a few white men who had come 
into the country with W. P. Hunt on his unfortunate 
overland trip in 1812. In October, 1834, Hall J. 
Kelley brought in a little band of whites from Califor- 
nia, among them the noted Ewing Young, who after- 

"French Prairie includes the tract from Champoeg south to Lake 
La Biche and, from Pudding River to the Willamette. It is a fertile 
garden spot. To the northwest across the Willamette lies the 
charming Chehalem valley where Thomas McKay took up his farm 
and where Ewing Young afterward built his sawmill. North of 
French Prairie Hes the rich valley of the Tualitin River. This entire 
tr^-ct is extremely productive. 



74 THE STORY OF OREGON 

ward took up farms here and there along the Willa- 
mette; and when Wyeth finally gave up and left the 
country a number of his men joined the American 
colony.''" At the time of Jason Lee's arrival the white 
settlers in the Willamette Valley, Americans and 
Canadians, numbered about a dozen men. 

57. Progress of Lee's Mission. — The missionaries 
labored at building and farming with their own hands. 
As soon as their house was habitable they began to 
plow and fence land. By spring, 1835, they had thirty 
acres enclosed with a rail fence and planted with wheat, 
corn, oats and vegetables. They also built a barn 
which was probably more comfortable than their house 
since its floors and doors were made of sawed lumber." 

'^Joseph Gervais came with Hunt. So did Michel La Framboise, 
who saved Hall J. Kelley's life when he fell sick on the way to Van- 
couver. John Ball, who came with Wyeth on his first trip, taught 
the first school west of the mountains at Vancouver in 1833, beginning 
January 1. In the following March Solomon H. Smith, probably an- 
other of Wyeth 's men, succeeded Ball. With Kelley and Ewing Young 
in 1834, eight men reached the Columbia. One of them, George Win- 
slow, was a negro. The most noted member of the party, after the two 
leaders, was Joseph Gale who helped build the first vessel launched 
in Oregon, "The Star of Oregon," and sailed to California as her 
master. After mining in California he returned to Oregon and lived 
in various parts of the state, finally settling in the beautiful mountain 
retreat called Eagle Valley about thirty miles from Baker City. Here 
from sixteen acres of land he sold $2,000 worth of produce in one year, 
though this would not be deemed a very heavy yield now from the 
irrigated soil of that delectable garden. Joseph Gale died in Eagle 
Valley at the age of ninety-two years. 

^^Two of the men who came with Hall J. Kelley were hired to saw 
the lumber by hand. The buildings were shingled with "shooks" 
split from four-foot fir bolts. Cedar, which would have been better, 
does not seem to have been availpible at the mission. 



THE MISSION AT SALEM 75 

At the same time the missionaries kept up reHgious 
services among the settlers and made more or less 
effort to interest the Indians; but the natives were 
a pitiful race to whom the gospel seems to have m.ade 
but a feeble appeal. A number of orphan children 
from different localities came to the mission at one time 
and another to be educated in the Christian religion, 
and some of them were perhaps benefited, but many 
died. Some were fatally diseased when they came to 
the mission, others contracted tuberculosis as savages 
so often do when they try to live in houses. The 
numerous deaths among the children at the mission, 
as well as the sickness among the whites themselves, ^^ 
seem to have inspired the Indians with a superstitious 
aversion to the place. The missionaries failed to win 
their confidence and never exercised much influence 
over them. 

58. The Willamette Cattle Company. — Since their 
labors among the Indians met with so little encourage- 
ment, Jason Lee and his colleagues naturally devoted 
themselves after a time to the spiritual and temporal 
interests of the whites. They not only preached every 
Sunday at Gervais's house, but they also opened a 
Sunday school and, in 1836, formed a Temperance 

'^^The missionaries seem to have paid too little attention to pure 
air and hygiene. Jason Lee was frequently sick during the first year 
or two, though he was naturally a robust man, and his wife died 
within a year after she arrived. The whites ascribed much of their 
sickness to "malaria," but we hear of no malaria among the settlers 
at other places. There was much overcrowding and some neglect 
of obvious precautions. When Anna Marie Pitman, Lee's bride, 
arrived at the mission house it contained thirty-eight Indian children 
of whom more than twelve were sick. 



76 "tut StORY OF OREGON 

Society to combat the evil influence of a distillery 
which Ewing Young threatened to estabHsh.^* In 
January, 1837, they efficiently assisted the settlers to 
form the Willamette Cattle Company to which Dr. 
McLoughlin and William A. Slacum also subscribed.'" 
The object of the company was to purchase a herd of 
cattle in California where they were numerous and 
cheap and drive them overland to Oregon." Eleven 
men were despatched on this errand of whom P. L. 
Edwards and Ewing Young were the leaders, and 
Slacum, to promote the good of the colony, gave them 
free passage on his ship, the Loriot. They set out from 
the mission on January 17, 1837, and reached California 

*^Young was embittered by the accusation of being a horse thief which 
Dr. McLoughlin and everybody else in Oregon seem to have be- 
lieved for some time. It was finally contradicted by Governor Figueroa 
himself and Dr. McLoughlin did what he could to make amends for 
his error, but Young remained unforgiving, assumed the attitude of a 
misanthrope and diligently talked against British control. He ob- 
tained some of the implements of his distillery from Wyeth when Fort 
William was abandoned in 1836, but the persuasions of the Temper- 
ance Society with those of William A. Slacum induced him to abandon 
the plan. 

^"Slacum was sent to the Pacific coast in 1835 by President Jackson 
to collect information for the government. At the instance of Hall 
J. Kelley, who had returned to the east and told a woeful tale of 
British persecution and tyranny in Oregon, Slacum was despatched 
thither from California to investigate the condition of the settlers and 
find out what he could about the country. He charted the Colum- 
bia, mapped the Indian villages, visited Dr. McLoughlin and so- 
journed a few days with the missionaries at Salem. The need of 
cattle naturally impressed him and he helped along the project of 
importing a herd from California. Slacum left Oregon Feb. 10, 1837. 

^^Cattle were still scarce in Oregon as late as 1839, when Dr. Mc- 
Loughlin declined to supply a British squadron with beef. He never 
refused cattle to the settlers when it was possible for him to furnish 
them. 



THE MISSION AT SALEM 77 

toward the end of the month. After vexatious delays 
a herd of eight hundred cattle was procured from the 
Spaniards which the men drove to Oregon, suffering 
extreme hardships on the route. It was the 12th of 
September, 1837, when they reached the Rogue River, 
and the middle of October before they completed their 
journey to the mission. About six hundred head of 
cattle were brought safety through which were dis- 
tributed among the subscribers to the company at 
seven dollars and sixty-seven cents a head. The in- 
troduction of this herd marks the beginning of real 
agricultural progress in the Willamette Valley. 

59. Arrival of Reinforcements. — The year of 1837 
not only saw agriculture placed upon a firm basis in 
the Willamette Valley, but it also brought welcome 
recruits to the missionaries. On the i8th of May 
a party arrived at Vancouver which had sailed from 
Boston almost a year before and suffered a long delay 
at the Sandwich Islands. Besides several children, 
this party included eight adults, among them a phy- 
sician, the celebrated EHjah White," whose services 
and counsel were, greatly needed at the mission, a 
blacksmith named Alanson Beers, who must have been 
almost as useful as the physician, and W. H. Wilson, 
a ship carpenter from New Bedford." But the most 
interesting member of this party was Miss Anna Maria 
Pitman of New York, who came out with the partially 

''Dr Elijah White was a shallow, intriguing man of popular manners 
and not too much principle. He had difficulty with Lee about the 
finances of the new hospital and went back east. 

"Beers was a Connecticut blacksmith. Wilson was a strong, kindly 
man liked by everybody. He had been a whaler. 



78 THE STORY OF OREGON 

formed purpose of marrying Jason Lee.'^ After a 
romantic courtship attended by long rides and pleas- 
ant camping trips, their wedding took place on the i6th 
of June. The yth of September, 1837, saw the arrival 
at Vancouver of a second party destined to strengthen 
Lee's mission. It had sailed from Boston in the Janu- 
ary preceding and consisted of two ministers, three 
women and three children.^^ These recruits raised 
the population of the mission to sixty persons, of whom 
about half were white and the rest Indians. The 
women must have humanized the life of the place a 
great deal and probably their mundane common sense 
soon made the conditions both physically and spirit- 
ually more healthy than they had been. The Willa- 
mette mission is now firmly established. If not very 
successful in saving the Indians, it has become the 
center of a vigorous American colony and we shall 
leave it for a time to follow the more tragic fortunes 
of the Whitman missions in the interior. 

'*Miss Pitman was a woman of much charm. She had some poetic 
gifts and was extremely devout. Her fate was a sad one as we shall 
see. 

"The ministers were H. K. W. Perkins and David LesHe. With 
Leslie came his wife and three little daughters. The other women 
were Margaret Smith and Miss Johnson, both unmarried. Misa 
Smith married William Johnson, November 21, 1837. 



CHAPTER VIII 
The Whitman Missions 

60. Parker and Whitman Set Out for Oregon. — 

Moved by the pathetic story of the four Nez Perces 
who came to St. Louis seeking the Bible and the white 
man's God, the American Board of Commissioners for 
Foreign Missions in March, 1835, sent out the Reverend 
Saiuel Parker to make a preliminary exploration of 
the Oregon field. Parker was a man of studious habits, 
refined tastes and strict piety. To the westerners he 
seemed rather punctilious in his deportment, but he 
must have been inspired with fervent zeal to undergo 
the hardships he did in the missionary cause and he 
must withal have enjoyed the adventures of travel 
for he explored the country about the Columbia and 
Lewis Rivers with exemplary thoroughness. When 
he reached St. Louis, April 4, 1835, he was joined by 
Dr. Marcus Whitman, whom the American Board had 
appointed to be his associate. Whitman was a much 
younger man than Parker, being then thirty-two years 
old. He was of robust frame, spare and sinewy, with 
blue eyes, and hair which was already turning gray. 
Mentally alert, he was enterprising almost to rashness, 
extremely persistent, and in emergencies his courage 
never faltered. A touch of the romantic softened the 
somewhat rugged outlines of his character. He loved 
to surprise his friends with little dramatic episodes. 
For example, when he reached the east after the fearful 



80 The story of Oregon 

winter journey of which we shall speak later, he did 
not discard his leathern garments but wore them in 
church, in the houses of his friends, and at Washington 
among the government officials. 

61. Parker's Travels. — From St. Louis to Liberty, 
Missouri, Parker and Whitman traveled by steamer. 
At Liberty they joined a caravan led by Fontenelle, 
a trader of the American Fur Company, and under his 
convoy crossed the pMins to Green River, where they 
fell in with a band of Flatheads and Nez Perces who 
were delighted to learn of their purpose 7^ Convinced 
by this that missions would be welcomed by the In- 
dians of the Columbia, Whitman returned to the east 
to procure the necessary means while Parker continued 
his journey to the far west. As far as Pierre Hole on 
the head waters of the Lewis River he traveled under 
the protection of Captain Bridger who was going that 
way with sixty men, but from Pierre Hole to Fort 
Walla Walla he traveled with no companions but the 
Indians. The route lay over the Salmon River and 
Kooskooskie Mountains, on whose desolate ranges 
Parker underwent dire suffering, but finally, August 
28, 1835, he reached the hospitable country of the Nez 
Perces and was received with a joyous welcome. 
Arriving at Walla Walla on October 6, Parker ex- 

"Parker and Whitman did not at the outset follow the same route 
as Jason Lee. They went from Liberty to Council Bluffs and struck 
westward from Belleview, a place on the west bank of the Missouri a 
few miles below Omaha. Parker showed from the outset his insati- 
able appetite for travel. From Liberty he improved a three weeks 
delay by visiting Leavenworth and from Belle vue he made a side trip 
to see Borne missionaries to the Pawnees. 



THE WHITMAN MISSIONS 81 

perienced the rare luxuries of dining at a table and 
sitting on a chair, and Pambrun, the agent, tempted 
him to linger by spreading a feast of roast duck with 
bread, milk and sugar; but his eager soul permitted 
him only two days rest at the fort. On the 8th of 
October he embarked in a canoe provisioned by the 
careful Pambrun and with three sturdy Walla Wallas 
for oarsmen he descended the Columbia through rapids 
which sometimes frightened him, visiting the savages 
by the way and receiving everywhere a glad welcome, 
to The Dalles, where he arrived on the 12th. Here he 
met Captain Wyeth on a journey to his post at Fort 
Hall and received from that accomplished adventurer 
a useful vocabulary of the Chinook jargon." At The 
Dalles Parker exchanged his Walla Walla canoemen 
for Wascos, and resumed the descent of the river 
through dismal rains, but on the i6th he was surprised 
by the sight of the men at work around Dr. McLough- 
lin's sawmill, and on the afternoon of the same day the 
Chief Factor welcomed the persevering missionary at 
Vancouver. Resolute in pursuing his duty, Parker 
stayed but one day at the fort. Then he went on board 
the May Dacre, Wyeth's ship which had brought Jason 
Lee's goods, now beginning her homeward voyage, and 
sailed down to the mouth of the Columbia, everywhere 
studying the Indians as they sought the ship to trade 
and contrasting the degraded character of these redmen 

^^The Chinook jargon is a mongrel language containing a few hun- 
dred words derived from English, French, Chinese, Indian and 
perhaps other sources. Traders and travelers used it along the 
Columbia and up the northwest coast. There are white men still 
living who can speak it. 



82 THE STORY OF OREGON 

with the sturdy manUness of the tribes of the upper 
river. The winter of 1835-6 Parker passed at Van- 
couver enjoying the abundant hospitaHty of Dr. Mc- 
Loughlin. In the spring, April 14, 1836, he set out 
on his journey homeward, intending to go by way of 
Green River and across the plains, but the Nez Perces, 
with whom he was traveling, insisted upon taking the 
trail over the Salmon River Mountains where the mis- 
sionary explorer had nearly lost his life by hardship 
the year before. Rather than go with them over that 
dreadful route he gave up his plan of making the over- 
land trip to the east and resolved to return by water. 
On the way back to Vancouver he visited Walla Walla 
again and near there selected Waiilatpu as the site of 
a mission. ^^ He also mingled duty and pleasure in 
trips up the Lewis River and across the country to 
Fort Colville. From Vancouver he sailed for the 
Sandwich Islands in the fall of 1836 and reached his 
home at Ithaca, New York, in May, 1837, after a jour- 
ney which had lasted more than two years and in 
which he had visited almost every tribe of Indians 
dwelling near the Columbia. 

62. Whitman's Journey to Fort Hall. — Meanwhile 
Dr. Marcus Whitman returned to New York in the fall 
of 1835 and was commissioned by the American Board 
to superintend the planting of a mission among the 
Columbia River Indians. During the following win- 

''^Waiilatpu was near the mouth of Mill Creek twenty-two miles 
from Fort Walla Walla on the north bank of the Walla Walla River. 
The site was in a valley covered with a rich growth of rye grass 
while on the surrounding hills bunch grass flourished. 



THE WHITMAN MISSIONS 83 

ter he made his preparations. In February, 1836, he 
was married to Narcissa Prentiss, a woman of rare 
charm and great piety and devotion, who made him a 
faithful helpmate in his difficult work. Whitman and 
his wife began their journey to the west without asso- 
ciates, for there were not many who wished to take 
part in an adventure so distant and hazardous, but at 
Pittsburg they met the Reverend H. H. Spalding and 
his wife who were persuaded to join them.'^ At 
Liberty, Missouri, the party was reinforced by W. H. 
Gray from Utica, New York, who had been engaged 
as a mechanic, and joining a caravan of the American 
Fur Company's traders they set out for the Columbia 
by way of Council Bluffs and the River Platte. Like 
Jason Lee, Dr. Whitman had the wisdom to under- 
stand that any successful mission among the Indians 
must be based upon agriculture ; he therefore provided 
himself with a plow and with seeds to begin farming 
as well as with an outfit of blacksmith's tools. At 
Liberty he added sixteen cows to his equipment for a 
colony, and besides horses for riding and the packsaddle, 
he also procured a one-horse wagon.*" At Laramie 

'^Spalding was a recent graduate from Lane Theological Seminary 
and newly married. He and his wife were on the way to the Osages 
as missionaries when Whitman fell in with them. Perhaps the al- 
teration of their plans did not at that time seem very great. Every- 
thing west of the Mississippi seemed about equally remote to the 
easterners. Spalding was not a brilliant man but he had consider- 
able ability. W. H Gray was a fine young man without much 
education but with good natural gifts. His History of Oregon shows 
that he knew what was going on around him and had his own opinion 
of events. 

*°The hght wagon was taken principally on Mrs. Spalding's account. 
Her health suffered from the hardships of the journey and she was 



84 THE STORY OF OREGON 

the goods were transferred to pack horses and all the 
wagons left behind except the light vehicle which was 
necessary for Mrs. Spalding's comfort. When the 
party reached the rendezvous at Green River the In- 
dians, who were there in large numbers, gave them a 
grand reception with a military exhibition in war paint 
and feathers. Here also they met Wyeth, who was 
returning to the east after the final failure of his enter- 
prise and the sale of his property to the Hudson Bay 
Company. 

63. From Fort Hall to Vancouver. — From Green 
River the route ran to Fort Hall on the Lewis through 
a country which wheeled vehicles had never yet 
traversed. The trappers advised Whitman that his 
light wagon could not get through to the Fort, but 
with characteristic persistence he declined to abandon 
it. As a matter of fact he drove the wagon not only 
to Fort Hall but beyond that point to Boise, though 
for the last stage he had to remove two of the wheels, 
thus reducing it to the humble estate of a cart. It is 
quite certain that he could have driven it through to 
Walla Walla had his horses been in good condition.®^ 

not able to ride horseback. The Whitman party also had two heavy 
wagons which were abandoned according to custom at Laramie. Horse 
vehicles had been driven far beyond Laramie, even to Wind River, as 
early as 1829, but the road was still rough in 1836. Whitman drove 
the light wagon himself and got safely over the South Pass to Green 
River, with Mrs. Spalding. 

*^The famous cart was laid up at Boise and left there four years. In 
1840, Joe Meek drove it across to Whitman's mission at Waiilatpu. 
By that time the road was pretty well broken. The difficulties of the 
highway through the mountains from Laramie were probably not so 
great as people imagined at first. There was a natural road through 
the South Pass. 



THE WHITMAN MISSIONS 85 

The missionary party arrived at Fort Walla Walla on 
September i, 1836, two years after Jason Lee reached 
the same spot, and thence, with a pause of a day or 
two to enjoy the hospitality of the post, they set out 
for Vancouver, which received them with a royal wel- 
come on the 12th. In entertaining the wayworn mis- 
sionaries, and in particular the women. Dr. McLoughlin 
lived up to his reputation. ^^ Whitman negotiated 
with him for assistance from the Company as it might 
be needed, bought a supply of goods to replace those 
which he had been forced to abandon here and there 
along the route and with Spalding and Gray returned 
up the Columbia to begin the missions. The women 
were left behind for the winter at the Fort. 

64. The Missions at Waiilatpu and Lapwai. — Whit- 
man established the first mission at Waiilatpu, the 
place which Parker had chosen.*^ Timber being scarce, 
the house was built of adobes, large bricks made of 
clay and baked in the sun. The enthusiastic Indians 
lent a hand and some help was supplied from Fort 
Walla Walla. When this house was done another 
station was begun at Lapwai on the Clearwater River 
a dozen miles above its mouth.®* Here the Spaldings 

^'During his stay of a few days at Vancouver, Dr. Whitman made 
the acquaintance of Jason Lee. 

^^Parker chose the site at Waiilatpu in the summer of 1836. Whit- 
man began to build in the fall of the same year. Parker must have 
left some word for him at the fort or among the friendly Indians. 
The latter would have been delighted to take charge of a letter 
or convey a message by word of mouth. They were vastly pleased 
to have the missionaries come among them. 

**It seems that Lapwai was also selected by Parker. It was only 
a little way from the point where Lewis and Clark took to the water 
on their trip westward. It was about one hundred and twenty 
miles east of Waiilatpu in the heart of the Nez Perce country. 



86 THE STORY OF OREGON 

were stationed while Dr. Whitman and his wife took up 
the mission work at Waiilatpu. In the spring of 1837 
he planted an acre of potatoes and twelve acres of corn, 
together with peas and barley. The land was fertile, 
as Parker had foreseen, and the crops flourished. In- 
duced by Whitman's success the surrounding Indians, 
who were far superior to the valley tribes both in vigor 
and intelligence, soon began to open small farms and 
raise supplies for themselves. Cattle obtained from 
the east multiplied rapidly and became so numerous 
in a few years that the Indians began to own herds. 
They were interested in the schools which the mission- 
aries opened. Religion seems to have been exceed- 
ingly attractive to them, at least in theory, and in 
course of time some of them were taken into the church. 
65. Progress of the Missions. — Whitman and his 
associates spared no pains to make the Indians self- 
supporting and to teach them to lead settled lives. 
Besides holding religious services and opening schools 
they taught the wild savages how to till their fields, 
built rude mills to grind their grain, and on a little 
press, sent from the Sandwich Islands by the mission- 
aries there, Whitman printed portions of the Bible 
which he and his fellow-workers had translated into 
the Indian tongue. In the spring of 1837, Gray was 
sent east to procure reinforcements for the mission. 
Successful in his errand he returned in the fall of 1838 
with a party of seven persons besides himself and wife. 
A new station was then occupied in the Spokane coun- 
try farther north than Waiilatpu. The American 
Board missions now seemed to be firmly planted. 



THE WHITMAN MISSIONS 87 

They had begun with brilUant prospects and the 
savages had welcomed them with enthusiasm. The 
missionaries, particularly the women, had many hard- 
ships to endure and their lives were lonely, but they 
enjoyed the consolations of work well done and occa- 
sionally they met together at Waiilatpu for worship 
and society as well as business.®^ 

^'For a time at least the Whitman missions reached the Indians 
much more successfully than did the Methodists in the valley of the 
Willamette, but Waiilatpu never became a center of American 
colonization Hke Salem. To Whitman belongs the credit of intro- 
ducing irrigation in the country around Walla Walla. It may be that 
history will give him more praise for this in the long run than for any 
of his other deeds, numerous and meritorious as they were. The 
people who came with Gray and his wife were Gushing Eels, Elkanah 
Walker and A. B. Smith with their wives and M. C. Rogers. Eels, 
Walker and Smith were ministers. 



CHAPTER IX 

Agitation for a Provisional Government 

66. Senator Linn's Efforts for Oregon. — From the 
year 1837 the thread of Oregon affairs becomes inter- 
woven more and more completely in the great web of 
national history. As we have seen, W. A. Slacum, 
the government agent who had been sent by President 
Jackson to investigate the condition of the settlers in 
Oregon, set sail for the east in February, 1837. In 
December of the same year his careful and full report 
was laid before Congress. It aroused an interest in 
Oregon which never afterward slumbered and moved 
a few far-sighted leaders, principally Dr. Lewis F. Linn, 
senator from Missouri, to take immediate action look- 
ing toward the occupation of that important territory 
by the United States.*^ In January, 1838, Linn in- 
troduced a bill to establish a territorial government in 
Oregon. Congress did not pass the bill, partly from 
indifference to the subject, but chiefly because Linn 
treated the claims of Great Britain with a levity which 
might have led to trouble. But he was not discouraged. 
In the following June he presented to Congress a lengthy 
report upon Oregon which recounted the history of the 
region, told what was then known of its climate and 
resources, and gave it a romantic interest by describing 

^'Gallatin renewed the treaty of the joint occupation in 1837 for ten 
years more. Then the Oregon question slumbered in Congress until 
Slacum 's report came in. Doubtless the approaching expiration of 
the treaty was one cause of the newly aroused interest in 1838. 



AGITATION FOR A PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT 89 

the Oregon Trail over which the Whitman party had 
passed two years before with the missionary women. 
Linn's report was scattered broadcast throughout the 
country and became a textbook for the pioneers who 
soon began to throng the highway across the plains." 

67. Lee Seeks Aid in the East for his Missions. — 
While the reports of Slacum and Linn where thus turn- 
ing the attention of the country forcibly to Oregon, 
Jason Lee arrived from his mission field to fan the 
flame to fervent heat. By this time the great mind 
of the missionary statesman had conceived a definite 
plan to conquer Oregon for the Union by establishing 
stations at strategic points from the Umpqua to Puget 
Sound and from Astoria to The Dalles. Daniel Lee 
actually opened a mission at The Dalles in the spring 
of 1838,®® but clearly the resources of the colony were 
too slender to carry out the broad enterprise which 
had been planned and it was decided that Jason Lee 
should return to the east to solicit men and money 
from the faithful. 

68. Lee's Further Purpose. His Wife's Death. — 
Lee went with another purpose also, which was to urge 
Congress to establish a territorial government in 
Oregon. Before he left the W^illamette Valley a con- 
vention was called and a memorial to Congress pre- 
pared which was entruste*d to his care. It described 

"Schafer says that copies of this report were among the " very few 
books taken across the plains." 

**The Dalles mission started out with a deceptive promise of success. 
There is a story that on one occasion eight hundred Indians were con- 
verted. Perhaps a few of the degraded, diseased and thievish tribe 
were actually benefited. 



90 THE STORY OF OREGON 

the delightful climate and overflowing resources of 
Oregon, set forth the prospects of trade with the Sand- 
wich Islands and China, dwelt upon the ambition of 
the settlers to found a commonwealth and narrated 
the inconveniences which they suffered from the 
absence of government and laws. All the men at the 
mission signed the memorial. Ewing Young and ten 
other colonists also signed it as well as nine of the 
French Canadians. ^^ Bearing the memorial with him, 
Jason Lee left for the east at the end of March, 1838, 
going by way of Vancouver, The Dalles, Walla Walla 
and Fort Hall.^'' He left his wife, who had come from 
the east to marry him the year before, at Salem. As 
he sped across the mountains and traversed the sandy 
stretches of the trail beside the shallow Platte in the 
wilderness, the Angel of Death entered the home he 
had left to serve his country and his God. At the 
Pawnee mission not far from Council Bluffs, a message 
which McLoughlin had sent across the continent over- 
took him, and alone in his chamber Jason Lee read the 
letter which told him his wife was dead." She was 

*°Ewing Young had cleared his reputation of all stain and had be- 
come a leading man in the colony. The French Canadians had been 
won over by the predominating influence of Jason Lee, who was as 
much a master of men as McLoughlin himself. Young's irreconcil- 
able hostility to the Hudson Bay Company began to produce impor- 
tant results in this memorial. 

^"McLoughlin left Vancouver for England about the same time. 
When he returned he brought his son with him. At Walla Walla 
Lee visited Whitman. They had met before at Vancouver the fall 
Whitman arrived. 

^^Mrs. Dye describes stage by stage the pathetic progress of Mc- 
Loughlin's letter until it overtook Lee at the Pawnee mission. The 
student will follow the storv with emotion. 



AGIITATION FOR A PROViSIONAt GOVERNMENT 9l 

buried under the fir trees in the land of promise where 
she died, while he went bravely forward upon his 
errand. 

69. The Peoria Party of Emigrants. — As soon as 
Lee crossed the Mississippi, he began to lecture to large 
audiences in the churches describing the attractions 
of Oregon for the settler and asking for subscriptions 
to the missionary cause. At Peoria, Illinois, one of 
the two Indians who had accompanied him fell sick 
and was left there through the winter of 1838-9."^ 
His tales of the salmon in the Columbia added to the 
interest which Lee had already excited, and, in the 
spring of 1839, Thomas J. Farnham with a party of 
fourteen men left Peoria to make the overland journey 
to Oregon, where they hoped to engage in business. 
Most of the party dropped away during the trip, 
so when Farnham reached Waiilatpu he had but 
three companions.^^ Farnham visited Daniel Lee, who 
was by that time established in his mission at The 
Dalles, tarried for a while at Vancouver, saw the mis- 
sion at Salem, and then returned to the east carrying 
a second memorial from the pioneers asking the United 
States to extend its protection and laws over Oregon. 

"P. L. Edwards,who went out with Jason Lee in 1834, returned with 
him at this time. Edwards went with Ewing Young to CaHfornia to 
buy cattle in 1837 and suffered great hardships. A man named 
F. Y. Ewing and two Chinook boys also accompanied Lee. 

'^Four others of Farnham's Peoria party, Holman, Cooke, Fletcher 
and Kilborne, reached Vancouver in May, 1840, on the same day as 
the passengers from the "Lausanne." They had traveled leisurely 
and wintered in the Rocky Mountains. Their appearance was nat- 
urally unkempt. Mrs. Dye describes the party as "four ragged 
boys." All of Farnham's party seem to have been young men. 



92 THK story of OREGON 

70. Lee's Memorial. Cushing's Report. — The me- 
morial which had been entrusted to Jason Lee was pre- 
sented to Congress in January, 1839, by Senator Linn, 
the staunch friend of Oregon. It drew the attention 
of Caleb Cushing of Massachusetts who forthwith 
wrote to Lee for further information about the Columbia 
country. Lee replied, January 17, 1839, that with the 
reinforcement he was about to take to Oregon the 
population of the mission would rise to seventy persons, 
that there were already forty-five white men settled in 
the country with Indian wives and that some twenty 
more would go overland from the west in the spring. 
If the government would take measures to secure the 
rights of settlers, Lee thought most of the mission force 
as well as the other whites would remain permanently 
in the country. The measures needed were: first, an 
assured title to the land which they might take up 
and second, the protection of the United States govern- 
ment and laws. Supplied with this new information 
from Jason Lee, Cushing in 1839 presented a report upon 
Oregon to the House of Representatives. By these 
means, Oregon was forced gradually upon the attention 
of the national legislature. The government became 
impressed with the value of the territory, and the pur- 
pose to make it a part of the Union grew into shape. 

71. The Lausanne Party. — Meanwhile, all through 
the winter and summer of the year 1839, Jason Lee 
labored unremittingly to raise men and money for the 
Willamette mission. The response was marvelous for 
the times. A sum of forty-two thousand dollars was 
subscribed, while thirty-six adult persons with sixteen 



AGITATION FOR A PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT 93 

children volunteered to return with him to Oregon. 
They shipped on the Lausanne at New York on Octo- 
ber lo, 1839, and sailed for Oregon with an adequate 
outfit of supplies for the colony. They passed around 
the Horn in safety, touched at Hawaii and landed at 
Vancouver on the first of June, 1840. 

72. Lee's Assignments. — Following out his noble 
scheme of founding a state by planting missions, Jason 
Lee stationed his reinforcements at various strategic 
points. J. H. Frost went to the pining settlement at the 
mouth of the Columbia, A. F. Waller to Willamette 
Falls, and J. P. Richmond to Fort Nesqually on Puget 
Sound. W. W. Cone and Gustavus Hines were sent 
to the Umpqua, but the mission which they began did 
not succeed. Brewer and Babcock were added to the 
forces at The Dalles. The other members of the party 
on the Lausanne joined the colony at Salem. At 
about this time some of the Rocky Mountain trappers 
also located not far from Salem, thus adding a new 
and strong American tendency to the forces at w^ork 
in the colony .^^ 

®*The colony now contained a hundred whites, or more. They 
had grown restless under the overshadowing power of the Hudson 
Bay Company and would have desired closer relations with Wash- 
ington purely from sentiments of patriotism even if they had suffered 
no inconveniences. The Company had treated them fairly, some- 
times generously, but as Americans they naturally wished to live 
under their own government. The mountain trappers sought the 
settlement because the dissolution of the American Fur Company in 
1840 had thrown them out of employment. Some interesting items 
pertaining to the settlement of the valley may be collected in this 
note better than elsewhere. In 1838 the Jesuits, Blanchet and 
Demers, began their missions among the Indians. Blanchet located 
among the Canadians on French Prairie and did a good work. In 



94 THE STORY OI^ OREGON 

73. Expedition of Lieutenant Wilkes. — The year 
1838, as the student will have noticed, was remarkable 
for agitation'of the Oregon question from many different 
sources. It was sufficient to stimulate the government 
at Washington to send out a fleet, named the Pacific 
Exploring Expedition, under Lieutenant Charles Wilkes 
with instructions to report upon the country. Wilkes 
traveled faithfully through the Willamette Valley and 
kept an account of what he saw and did. At Sauvie's 
Island he found Joseph Gale and his companions en- 
gaged in building ''The Star of Oregon" and much ham- 
pered by lack of material, such as spikes and ropes, 

1839 the North Litchfield Association of Connecticut, Presbyterian, 
fitted out two missionaries, J. S. Griffin and Ashabel Hunger. 
Griffin settled on Tualitin Plains after wintering at Lapwai. In the 
year 1839 Captain John Couch of the brig "Maryland" took up a land 
claim in North Portland and E. O. Hall brought the printing press 
from Hawaii to the Whitman mission. This press ended its career 
at Oregon City. The "Oregon Spectator," begun in 1846, was printed 
on it. In September, 1840, another party of Presbyterian mission- 
aries arrived in Oregon and settled on Taulitin Plains. They came 
from Quincy, Illinois. Their names were Harvey Clark, A. T. Smith 
and P. B. Littlejohn, each with his wife. Littlejohn went east in 
1845, but the other two remained and became leading citizens. On 
his way to Oregon, Smith made a loom for Mrs. Spalding at Lapwai 
and helped build a gristmill there. In 1841 he took up a claim in 
Washington County and lived there the rest of his life. S. A. Clark 
visited him there in 1885 and took down his story. The arrival of 
immigrants from so many different parts of the country shows that 
the efforts of Hall J. Kelley, Jason Lee and others had awakened a 
wide interest in Oregon. The Frenchman, Mofras, who visited 
Oregon in 1841-2, found in the entire Columbia country two hundred 
Americans, and one hundred Englishmen, the latter in the service 
of the Hudson Bay Company. There were also three hundred 
French Canadians of whom one hundred were in the service of the 
Company. In the fall of 1842 Dr. White's party arrived, largely 
increasing the number of Americans. 



AGITATION FOR A PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT 05 

with which Dr. McLoughhn had hesitated to supply 
them. He rather suspected that they might turn out 
to be pirates. Wilkes ascertained their good inten- 
tions and induced McLoughlin to sell them what they 
needed. ^^ At French Prairie, where he dined with the 
good Father Blanchet, Wilkes found the Canadians 
living an idyllic life on their comfortable farms. Pass- 
ing a few other farms belonging to scattering settlers, 
Wilkes came to the old mission^^ where Mr. Abernethy 
and three other men were living with their families 
in the hospital built by Dr. Elijah White. Thence 
he went on to Salem, talking with the settlers and in- 
specting the missionary work. At Oregon City, where 
he talked with the Methodist missionary. Waller, 
Wilkes heard a great deal about the tyranny and ex- 
actions of the Hudson Bay Company, and in general 
among the settlers he learned of a desire for a pro- 
visional government to rule the country until it should 
be formally taken over by the United States. But 
with this aspiration Wilkes felt Httle sympathy. In 
his opinion the Americans were not yet numerous 
enough to establish a government, and he saw no rea- 
son why they should be displeased with the Company 
which had aided them in many ways, sold them large 
supplies of goods on credit, protected them from the 
Indians and furnished them a market for their prod- 

•'What they actually did was to sail to California and trade the 
ship for cattle. They said they were going to leave Oregon because 
there were no white women for wives, but most of them came back 
with the cattle. 

*^In the spring of his return in the " Lausanne" Jason Lee removed 
the mission to Chemeketa, that is, Salem. 



96 THE STORY OF OREGON 

uce. In conversation with the settlers Wilkes dis- 
couraged the project of forming a provisional govern- 
ment and in his report when he returned east he spoke 
slightingly of their reasons for discontent with actual 
conditions. Naturally Lieutenant Wilkes did not 
please the settlers by his opinions and comments.®' 
He sailed for California on October 5, 1841. 

74. Death of Ewing Young. — In the winter of 1 841-2 
the undaunted pioneer, Ewing Young, died in the prime 
of life leaving a considerable estate with no heirs present 
in Oregon to claim it. How to dispose of this property 
was a question which interested the settlers from its 
very nature while it also emphasized their lack of laws 
and a regular government. At Young's funeral a call 
was issued for a general meeting on February 17, 1841, 
ostensibly to deliberate upon the disposal of his estate, 
but when the meeting convened, with Jason Lee in the 
chair and Gustavus Hines for secretary, it resolved to 
elect a committee to draft a constitution and cod 2 of 
laws. On the next day, February 18, David Leslie 

*^He was severe upon the mission people for leaving their new farm 
machinery out in the winter rains. This habit has not yet entirely 
disappeared in Oregon. Sir George Simpson, governor of the Hud- 
son Bay Company, and Duflot de Mofras, from the French legation 
in Mexico, also visited Oregon in 1841. Wilkes estimated sixty 
white families and ten thousand cattle in the Willamette Valley. 
Probably he was mistaken about the number of the cattle. Holman, 
in his Life of McLoughlin, says fresh beef was scarce at Vancouver 
in 1841. If there were only three thousand cattle, each family, 
including the Canadians, would have had some twenty-four head and 
beef would not have been scarce among the settlers. In 1841 there 
were thirty-five thousand bushels of wheat raised in the Willamette 
Valley according to Simpson. Of course there were other crops in 
proportion. Hogs were very numerous. 



AGITATION FOR A PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT 97 

was made chairman. It seems that Lee retired in 
order to concihate the French colonists who might 
have been jealous of him as the superintendent of the 
Methodist missions. The committee was then selected 
««with Father Blanchet at its head, and Dr. Ira h. 
Babcock of the Methodist mission was appointed 
supreme judge with probate powers. He was in- 
structed to follow the laws of New York until the pro- 
posed code should be compiled, and, to give the com- 
mittee time for this work, the convention adjourned 
till the 7th of June. It is thus clear that the settlers 
went far beyond the ostensible purpose of their meet- 
ing, and took decided steps toward establishing a 
government for themselves. 

75. The Provisional Government in Abeyance. Dr. 

Babcock appointed an administrator for Ewing Young's 
intestate property on April ij,'^ but when the colonists 
reconvened on June 7th, they found that nothing had 
been done toward compiling a constitution and code. 
In fact Father Blanchet, partly under Dr. McLoughlin's 
influence, believed that the time had not yet come when 
the settlers needed a government with formal laws. 
He laid much stress on the interesting fact that so far 
^^Besides Blanchet, the committeemen were Jason Lee, David 
Donpierre, Gustavus Hines, Robert Moore, J. L. Parrish, Etienne 
Lucier, WiUiam Johnson and a Canadian named Charlevon. The 
names show that the French and American elements were about 
equally represented. 

^''Curiously enough, although there had as yet been no crime in the 
colony, the proceeds of Ewing Young's estate were applied to build 
a jad m Oregon City. Some twenty years later Ewing's son Joaquin 
made claim to the property and the legislature restored its value to 
him 



98 THE STORY OF OREGON 

the settlement had been almost free from crime. 
Accordingly Blanchet very properly withdrew from 
the chairmanship, and W. J. Bailey was chosen in his 
place. The meeting then adjourned to the first Thurs- 
day in October, but before that date the opposition of 
Lieutenant Wilkes, previously mentioned, had so 
dampened the ardor of the colonists that the project 
was dropped for the time, at least publicly. The 
private agitation of course continued ceaselessly, for 
it is not consistent with the nature of Americans to live 
without a constitution and laws. 



CHAPTER X 

The Emigration of 1842 

76. White Appointed Indian Agent. — In his letter 
to Representative Caleb Cashing of Massachusetts, 
January 17, 1839, Jason Eee had urged that the United 
States should designate some person to act as magis- 
trate and governor in Oregon. This recommendation 
was not forgotten by those in the east who had the 
interests of Oregon at heart and in 1842, through the 
efforts of Senator Linn and others, the government 
was moved to send out an Indian agent. Since the 
conflicting claims of Great Britain had not yet been 
adjusted it would not have been seemly to complicate 
the question by appointing a governor. ^'^'^ For this 
humble office Dr. Elijah White was selected. ^''^ Be- 
sides his formal commission as Indian agent he re- 
ceived vague oral directions to act as a sort of magis- 
trate among the whites and was urged by the govern- 
ment to take with him to the coast as many emigrants 
as he could collect. ^^- 

'""In the summer of 1842 Daniel Webster and Lord Ashburton were 
discussing the matters at issue between the United States and Great 
Britain,'and in August they signed the so-called Ashburton Treaty. 
The Oregon question was somewhat dwelt upon between them but, 
to the great disappointment of the westerners, it was not settled. 
Great Britain still clung to the Columbia as her southern boundary, 
while Webster had set his heart upon the forty-ninth parallel. 

^"^ After his difference with Jason Lee in 1840, White returned east 
by sea and had since been living at his home in Lansing. 

'°*It thus appears that Washington was moving unerringly, if some- 
what gradually, toward the assimilation of Oregon. By this time 
it was pretty well admitted on all sides that the United States would 
hold the territory south of the Columbia. 



100 THE STORY OF OREGON 

77. White's Party of Emigrants. — There was already 
a hvely interest in Oregon among the bold spirits of 
the west, and White by his lectures and talks with ad- 
venturous young men had no difficulty in collecting 
the largest band of emigrants which had thus far ever 
crossed the plains to the coast. He left Independence 
on May i6, 1842, with about one hundred and twenty 
persons under his charge, of whom fifty-two were men 
over eighteen years of age. This was a formidable 
reinforcement to the American colonists in Oregon. 
Since the American Fur Company had now dissolved 
and its caravans were no longer at the service of the 
emigrants, White's party had to rely upon its own re- 
sources. To meet the necessities of the case, they 
adopted regulations for the journey which were sub- 
stantially the same as those followed by the great 
emigration of 1843, and those who crossed the plains 
in subsequent years. A captain was elected, a pilot 
or guide appointed, and rules adopted for the march 
by day and the encampment by night. Camp was 
pitched at four o'clock, when wood and water were at 
hand. The wagons were drawn up in a circle which 
served both as a fortification and a pen for the horses 
and cattle. At sunset the stock, which had been 
turned out to graze, was brought within the ring of 
wagons^"' and tethered. The families prepared their 
meals separately but after nightfall they met in social 
converse enlivening the time with^°* singing and inno- 

^"'The party had eighteen large Pennsylvania wagons drawn by 
oxen, besides many mules and horses as well as cows. 

^o^Schafer describes from original sources the working of a similar 
code in the emigration of 1843. White's party got along fairly well 
though not entirely without dissension. The interesting fact is that 
their rules brought them safely to their dest^na^ion. 



THE EMIGRATION OF 1 842 101 

cent amusements, and for sleep the women and children 
retired to the covered wagons while the men bivouacked 
on the ground under tents. Following the Oregon 
Trail, White's party reached Fort Laramie June 23, 
where they rested a week and procured supplies at 
exorbitant prices.*"^ Here also many of the emigrants, 
taking bad advice, sold their oxen and wagons, receiv- 
ing goods or horses in exchange. Those who kept 
their wagons drove them through to Fort Hall without 
serious difficulty and might have driven them farther, 
but at this place the goods were transferred to pack 
horses, and it was left to the emigrants of 1 843 to go 
through to the Columbia with wagons for the first 
time. From Fort Hall, White traveled faster than his 
companions. He made his way rapidly to Vancouver, 
visiting Whitman as he passed Waiilatpu. The main 
body, which followed in two divisions, also enjoyed 
Whitman's hospitality when they reached his station. 
The last of them passed Walla Walla about the middle 
of September, a week or two before the energetic doctor 
received the news from the east which caused him to 
set out upon his famous winter ride. White reached 
Vancouver September 20, 1842, and on September 23d, 
addressed a meeting of the settlers at Champoeg, 
where he recounted the purpose of his appointment 
and spoke of the intention of the government to foster 
the colony. The members of his party sought work 
here and there throughout the settlements in the 

^''^Flour was a dollar a pint and coffee and sugar a dollar a pound . 
The next year members of the big emigration complained because 
Dr. Whitman charged them a dollar a bushel for wheat. 



102 THE STORY OF OREGON 

Valley. McLoughlin, ever thoughtful and generous, 
hired some of them at fair wages. Others were em- 
ployed at Oregon City by the Methodist Mission which 
was making improvements there.^'^^ 

^"''Probably most of the men with families settled at Oregon City. 
During the winter of 1842-3 the number of buildings at that place 
increased from three or four to thirty. 



CHAPTER XI 

Progress oi^ the Whitman Missions 

78. Whitman's Discouragements. — Toward the end 
of September, 1842, not long after White's party 
passed Waiilatpu, Dr. Whitman received orders from 
the American Board to discontinue the mission at that 
place and also the one at Lapwai where Spalding 
was laboring. It appears that many discouragements 
had beset the work at these stations. The first en- 
thusiasm of the savages for Christian instruction had 
speedily given way to childish petulance. Sometimes 
they were submissive to the missionaries, sometimes 
impudently hostile. The country under inteUigent 
cultivation turned out to be exceedingly fertile and 
large crops were raised both at Waiilatpu and Lapwai. 
Some of the Indians also planted fields, but their 
labors were fitful and inconstant. Since 1840 Whitman 
had received little or no encouragement from the 
American Board. Reinforcements had not arrived 
to cheer and aid him. Even the few helpers whom 
he secured at one time and another were Hkely to 
desert him.^"^ In the spring of 1840 the Jesuit Father 
Demers began a brilliantly successful mission among 
the Indians in Whitman's vicinity, which was liberally 
supported with men and money from Europe. This 
created religious divisions among the savages, as a mat- 

^"^W. H. Gray, for instance, one of his original party, left for the 
valley in 1842 to superintend the construction of the Oregon Institute. 



104 THE STORY OF OREGON 

ter of course, and added much to Whitman's difficulties. 
He also had to contend with the evil influence of cer- 
tain depraved whites who roamed lawlessly among 
the savages sowing discord. The air was full of dis- 
couragement, perhaps of peril, for nobody could pre- 
dict what the fickle and wayward Indians might do at 
any moment. Finally toward the end of September 
came the order from the east to close the missions. 
A man less determined than Whitman and less con- 
secrated to his ideal would have given up in despair. 
79. Whitman's Winter Journey. — A meeting of the 
missionaries associated with Whitman was called 
forthwith to consider the order of the American Board. 
They agreed that the missions at Waiilatpu and Lapwai 
ought not to be abandoned, and at his request gave him 
permission to visit the east and lay the subject before 
the Board. McKinley, the Hudson Bay Company's 
agent at Fort Walla Walla, advised him that it was 
not then too late in the season to make the journey 
by way of Santa Fe. His natural courage and im- 
petuosity urged him to attempt it. Hastily arranging 
his affairs for a long absence,*''^ he set out on October 3, 
1842, for Fort Hall, accompanied only by a guide and 
by A. Iv. Love joy, a belated member of Dr. Elijah 
White's party, who by a fortunate coincidence was 
still at Waiilatpu and was persuaded by Whitman to 
join in his almost desperate adventure. When they 
reached Fort Hall it seems that there was still time to 
cross the mountains by the usual emigrant trail, and 

^''^Whitman confided his wife to McKinley's care and invited two 
of his friends to spend the year of his absence with her. 



PROGRESS OF THE WHITMAN MISSIONS 105 

Whitman would have taken that route had he not 
received warnings of hostile Indians. This together 
with the information he had received from McKinley 
induced him to turn southward over the much longer 
trail by way of Taos and Bent's Fort. In this section 
of the journey the travelers were overtaken by ter- 
rible storms. The pitiless cold of the mountains tor- 
mented them and hunger brought them to the verge 
of death. Still they persevered. Whitman's in- 
domitable will animating his iron frame triumphed 
over all obstacles and the two hardy travelers finally 
reached Bent's Fort in safety. This was in January, 
1843. Love joy remained at the fort until the follow- 
ing summer when he returned northward in time to 
join the great emigration at Fort Hall. ^^^ 

80. Whitman in the East. — Whitman pushed on 
without delay to the east by way of St. Louis and 
made his appearance, dressed in his pioneering garb 
of furs and buckskins, both in Boston and Washing- 
ton. In the former city he pleaded with the Ameri- 
can Board to rescind their order of abandonment and 
renew their support of the missions at Waiilatpu and 
Lapwai, but he pleaded in vain, except that he ex- 
torted permission to labor with the Indians if he de- 
sired at his own expense. With this cold comfort from 
the obdurate board, he went to Washington where he 

'"^Lovejoy reached Oregon with the emigrants and settled first at 
Oregon City as McLoughhn's business agent. In the winter of 1843 
he purchased the site of Portland in partnership with F. W. Petty- 
grove. The first house in Portland was built at the corner of Front 
and Washington streets in 1844, and the town was laid out in 1845. 
Lovejoy, who was originally from Boston, died in 1882. 



106 THE STORY OF OREGON 

renewed the recommendations so often made to the 
government before, and from so many different sources, 
to estabUsh a line of forts along the Oregon Trail for 
the protection and sustenance of emigrants. Unde- 
terred by his chill reception in the east, Whitman 
turned his face toward Oregon again in the spring of 
1843 with his zeal still burning brightly, and by the 
1 8th of May was at Independence ready to join the 
assembled emigrants. ^^^ 

81. Indian Troubles at Waiilatpu. — Among the 
Cayuses in the vicinity of Waiilatpu a conviction had 
gradually taken shape that the whites would sooner or 
later deprive them of their land. The arrival of Dr. 
White's party of emigrants, in the fall of 1842, seemed 
to confirm the unfortunate belief and when Whitman 
soon afterward left for the east the Indians took it for 
granted that he would return with a band of settlers 
who would occupy the territory near V/aiilatpu. This 
naturally increased their hostility to the missionaries, 
and Whitman had not been long away when the un- 
grateful savages burned one of his mills. As soon as 
White received the news of the outrage he proceeded 
to the country of the Cayuses, and, in his capacity of 
Indian Agent for the government, succeeded in bringing 
the chiefs into a council at Lapwai where he cajoled 
them in the ineffectual manner which at that time was 

""His outfit for the journey across the mountains was slender. It 
is reported that he had no provisions but a boiled ham, expecting to 
shoot game enough to eat. He seems to have been disappointed in 
this particular and the other emigrants had to feed him. Daniel 
Waldo, for instance, relieved his wants more than once. 



PROGRESS OF* The whitman MISSIONS 107 

supposed to be wise, and induced them to adopt a code 
of laws by which penalties were provided for murder, 
arson, theft, and the other crimes most common among 
them. Under White's persuasion they also elected 
a head chief with rather wide executive authority. 
The laws made a pretty appearance on paper, but to 
the savage mind they carried a meaning entirely dif- 
ferent from White's and in the sequence they did more 
harm than good inasmuch as they were made to justify 
insolent trickery."^ But White succeeded in restoring 
some sort of peace between the savages and the mis- 
sions so that crops were raised in the summer of 1843 
and supplies were for sale at Waiilatpu when the 
famished emigrants arrived in the fall. Thus White, 
on behalf of the United States, exercised some real 
influence over the Indians, while he tried without much 
success to assume a certain vague authority over the 
colonists. 

"'Kipling's phrase "half devil and half child" applies with singular 
force to these savages about Waiilatpu. They were friendly one 
day and hostile the next without apparent cause. They lied, 
stole and murdered almost at the very moment when they were pray- 
ing most fervently. They wanted pay for cultivating their own 
fields. Some of them even demanded pay for saying their prayers. 
When the emigrants of 1843 came through, these Indians would steal 
their horses at night and demand a shirt the next morning for restor- 
ing them. Altogether they were a hopeless tribe. 



CHAPTER XII 
The Provisional Government 

82. Agitation for a Provisional Government. — The 

colonists desired a more formal and stable government 
than Dr. White could offer them. In the fall of 1842 
they again made overtures to the Canadians to assist 
in establishing some provisional arrangement, and 
met with another rebuff through the influence of Dr. 
McLoughhn and Father Blanche t. The former very 
properly deemed that his loyalty was due to Great 
Britain. The latter, speaking for the Frenchmen, 
declared in substance that a provisional government 
would bring more inconvenience than benefit. He 
refused to pay taxes and asserted that a militia would 
simply breed trouble between the whites and Indians, 
while the more laws they had in the colony the more 
roguery would thrive."^ But there was no lull in the 
agitation. It was kept up through the winter of 
1842-3. The ravages of wild beasts among the horses 
and cattle perpetually stimulated it, and on February 
2, 1843, a number of settlers who had gathered more 
or less formally at the Oregon Institute issued a call 
for a general meeting which convened on the second 
Monday in March. "^ The ostensible purpose was to 

^"Father Blanchet agreed very well with some modern theorists 
like Tolstoi. It is interesting to hear these opinions from the lips 
of a man of education who was then Uving in the conditions which 
the absence of the law produces. 

"^From the purpose for which it was called this is known as the 
"Wolf Meeting." 



THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT 109 

devise some sort of protection against wild animals, 
which was effected by offering bounties for the slaughter 
of wolves, lynxes, bears and panthers. This com- 
pleted the business of the first day. 

83. Organization of the Provisional Government. — On 
the second day the settlers took up a much more impor- 
tant matter. They appointed a committee of twelve men 
to consider the propriety of "taking steps for the civil 
and military protection of the colony. ' ' Some of the col- 
onists were more interested in this than in the destruc- 
tion of the wild beasts, and they naturally seized the 
opportunity to forward their purpose . The agitation for 
a provisional government was steadily carried on, some 
favorable sentiment was aroused even among the Cana- 
dians, and when the time seemed to be ripe for action 
the committee called a mass meeting at Champoeg on 
May 2, 1843. The colonists duly assembled and lis- 
tened to the committee's report in favor of establishing 
a government, but the motion to adopt it hung in 
doubt for some time and might have been lost had 
it not been for the bold initiative of Joe Meek, a stal- 
wart and picturesque mountain man, who marched 
to the right where the party for the organization was 
to stand in dividing, and called upon those who favored 
the report to follow him. His courage decided the 
issue. The factions consumed an hour in dividing, 
but when the votes were counted there were fifty-two 
for the provisional government and only fifty against it. 

84. The First Organic Law. — The opposing faction 
then withdrew and those who remained proceeded to 
elect officers under the new government. They chose 



110 THE STORY OF OREGON 

a supreme judge, a clerk and recorder, three magistrates, 
three constables, a major and three captains of militia, 
and naturally Joe Meek was made high sheriff. Be- 
fore adjourning the colonists appointed a legislative 
committee to draft a code of laws and report to the 
people on July 5, 1843."* The settlers assembled at 
Champoeg on July 4, and listened to an eloquent 
oration by the Reverend Gustavus Hines in honor of 
the occasion. Early the next morning the meeting 
was called to order and the code recommended by the 
committee, the "First Organic Law" of Oregon, was 
adopted. It was largely modeled on the laws of Iowa 
which were declared to be the "laws of this territory 
in civil, military and criminal cases where not other- 
wise provided for." The report speaks of the country 
as "Oregon territory" which for the purposes of "tem- 
porary government" was divided into four districts. 
Following the terms of the report, the pioneers then 
proceeded to adopt, as "fr'^e citizens of this territory," 
certain "articles of compact," "for the purpose of 
fixing the principles of civil and religious liberty as the 
basis of all laws and constitutions of government that 
may hereafter be adopted.""^ This fundamental com- 

"^This committee was paid at the rate of a dollar and a quarter a 
day for each member, the money to be raised by subscription. Pay 
was allowed for six days* work only. 

"^Philosophers have speculated a great deal about the origin of 
government. A little attention to facts like those narrated above 
would solve the problem for them. The general course of events 
has been the same in every case though it has sometimes taken cen- 
turies elsewhere to accomplish what the Oregon pioneers did in a 
year or two. The four legislative districts were named Twality, 
Yamhill, Clackamas and Champoick. The primitive orthography 
will not trouble the reader. 



THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT 111 

pact established religious liberty, provided for trial 
by jury, promised to encourage "schools and the means 
of education," and forbade slavery. It limited the 
suffrage to white males, vested the executive power 
in a committee of three persons and the legislative 
power in a committee of nine. A supreme court and 
probate courts were also established. ^^^ The expenses 
of the new government were to be defrayed by sub- 
scription, which proved to be an ineffectual expedient 
and soon had to be altered. But there were various 
factions to be conciliated and the people undoubtedly 
adopted the best plan that could be devised in the 
circumstances."^ Much of this scheme of government 
was made to fit the list of officers who had been chosen 
at the meeting on May 2nd, and who were now con- 
firmed in their positions. 

85. The First Land Law. — The people also adopted 
a law of land claims which was of more practical in- 
terest to settlers than anything else they did. Claims 
were limited to 640 acres, but they might be "square or 
oblong" in shape^ This in practice came to mean 
any shape whatever, so that many of the old claims 
wound deviously along the course of streams. They 

"°The compact declared that the people were entitled to "propor- 
tionate representation in the legislature." Many years were to 
elapse before this was truly attained. The nearest the pioneers came 
to it was to provide for a majority representation which leaves the 
minority out altogether and is far from being "proportionate." 

"^The members of the executive committee were David Hill, Alan- 
son Beers, a lay member of Lee's mission, and Joseph Gale who built 
the "Star of Oregon." They were not the strongest characters in the 
community, but, probably for that very reason, were the most 
avaliable. 



112 THE STORY OF OREGON 

had to be designated by natural boundaries or corner 
marks and recorded in a book kept by the territorial 
recorder. This liberal land law was a powerful attrac- 
tion to new settlers. Oregon was now provided with a 
government and a code of laws in readiness for the 
great emigration which arrived in the fall of the same 
year, 1843. 



CHAPTER XIII 

The Emigration of 1843 

86. Causes of the Emigration. — While the colonists 
were framing the First Organic Law of Oregon at 
Champoeg the great emigration was moving slowly 
across the plains. In the spring of 1843 there seemed 
to be a general understanding throughout Missouri 
and the neighboring states that a large party would 
start for Oregon as soon as the season opened. The 
causes which had excited the migratory impulse were 
numerous and complicated. At the bottom of it lay 
of course the economic motive, for the story had gone 
far and wide that in Oregon there was free land for 
everybody with abundant crops and high prices. The 
people of the Mississippi Valley, dwelling in the heart 
of the continent without railroads and with no seaport 
but remote New Orleans, were hard put to it to dispose 
of their produce and, for all their fertile soil, their farms 
were almost worthless in the market while corn, their 
great staple, was sometimes burned for fuel on the 
river steamers. The Willamette Valley on the other 
hand was near the Ocean and easily accessible to the 
markets of the Sandwich Islands, of Russian Alaska 
and the Orient. 

87. Other Motives. — To the economic motive for 
the emigration we must add the powerful influence of 
that hatred of Great Britain which still burned in the 
breasts of the western pioneers. The long contest 



114 tHE STORY 01^ OREGON 

over the Oregon country had at times almost threatened 
war. The westerners beHeved, perhaps they hoped, 
that it would only be settled by war, and there were 
eager young men who longed to be on the ground to 
take a hand in the fight. Nor must we forget the 
attraction to those bold and hardy souls of the journey 
itself, the long and adventurous march across the plains, 
hunting the buffalo, guarding against the cunning 
savage, fording the rivers, gazing into far-off vistas 
from the lofty passes of strange mountains and sleep- 
ing under the stars. Hardship itself has its charm 
for vigorous youth, and adventure in untried lands calls 
with irresistible allurement. The lectures of Jason 
Lee were not forgotten in which he had told of the 
wide Willamette Valley with its deep soil, its abundant 
native grasses, its perennial springs and its gentle hills 
rising by slow degrees on the east and the west to the 
fir-clad mountains. The speeches in Congress on the 
Oregon question had been widely read and had set 
many hearts throbbing with interest in the new and 
remote land. In the summer of 1842, Elijah White 
journeying westward at the head of his hundred and 
twenty emigrants had written back from the moun- 
tains, as Jason Lee did on his pioneer trip, that all was 
well with his adventurers, that they would reach the 
promised land in safety, and that a trusty pilot would 
be on hand the next spring for those who wished to 
follow. 

88. Gathering of the Companies. — So as spring 
opened the companies which had been organizing in 
the winter of 1842-3 at many places in Ohio, Kentucky, 



THE EMIGRATION OF 1 843 115 

Tennessee, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa and Missouri began 
to draw together at Independence. At the head of 
some of these little bands were men of great ability 
and wide influence who were willing to try their for- 
tunes in Oregon. Of course their example was fol- 
lowed by many of less note."^ Sometimes a whole 
family of brothers took the trail with their wives, their 
children, and their household goods loaded in wagons 
drawn by oxen. Sometimes the little primary party 
was a band of boyhood friends. Through April and 
the first weeks of May, 1843, they came gathering in at 
Independence. On May 20th, the assembly had become 
large enough to organize and adopt a code of rules for 
the overland march. "^ Peter H. Burnett was elected 

^"Peter H. Burnett of Weston, Missouri, led a large party. Jesse 
Applegate with his brothers, Lindsay and Charles, and Daniel Waldo 
brought a company from St. Clair county in the same state. These 
men became leaders in Oregon affairs. Jesse Applegate had fine 
literary gifts. His writings on the history of his day are highly 
valued. Bancroft has collected all the particulars of the journey. 
Two or three typical facts will convince the student of the vivid 
interest which the westerners felt in Oregon. In 1838-39 the legis- 
lature of Illinois memorialized Congress for a speedy settlement of 
the Oregon question and occupation of the country. In 1840, seven 
citizens of Elizabethtown, Kentucky, asked Congress to build a road 
to Astoria and plant there a government colony. The same year a 
petition of the same purport went in from forty citizens of Indiana. 
The Oregon fever was a spirit that had slowly developed. Its final 
outbreak was perfectly natural and needs no miraculous explanation. 

"^Schafer has followed the emigration with scholarly enthusiasm. 
His researches have brought to light much new and interesting in- 
formation. Peter H. Burnett kept a diary of the trip. Jesse Apple- 
gate, "Captain of the Cow Column," described his experiences to the 
Pioneer Association in 1876. 



116 THE STORY OF OREGON 

captain and J. W. Nesmith orderly sergeant with nine 
councilmen to aid in settling difficulties. ^^^ 

89. Beginning of the Journey. — On May 22nd, the 
journey began with John Gantt for guide. The weather 
was fine and the road good, still the conduct of a 
mixed company of nearly a thousand persons, some 
with baggage and cattle, others with few impediments, 
presented many difficulties and at the crossing of the 
Big Blue E-iver it was divided into two sections, each 
of sixty wagons. Those who had few loose cattle to 
delay them led the van. The men encumbered with 
herds marched in the rear; but the two sections kept 
always within supporting distance of each other and 
at Independence Rock a new arrangement was made.^^^ 
The day's routine was much the same as with Elijah 
White's party of the preceding year. At four o'clock 
in the morning activity began. Fires were kindled, 
the herds collected, breakfast cooked and eaten. Then 
the tents were struck, the circle of wagons broken up 
and the oxen yoked. Each section of sixty wagons 
was divided into fifteen platoons of four, and the lead- 
ing platoon of the day before fell into the rear as the 
march began. At seven o'clock the trumpet sounded, 
the guide took his place in the van, the teamsters 
shouted to their oxen and the long procession moved 
slowly forward, forging steadily ahead until noon when 

'^"Burnett resigned after eight days' service and William Martin 
took his place. Nesmith became United States senator from Oregon 
and his descendants are still leading figures in the state. 

^2^For better protection against the Indians the sections were broken 
up into small parties. This brought congenial persons together and 
led to many lasting friendships. 



'The: emigration of 1843 117 

a pause was made at a spot selected beforehand by the 
provident guide, and men and cattle rested and ate. 
At one o'clock they got under way agam and plodded 
onward till the sun was low. Then the wagons were 
drawn up in a circle, the unyoked oxen were turned 
out to graze, each wagon was fastened to the one ahead 
by its chains and tongue so as to form a barrier to pro- 
tect the stock and ward off hostile Indians, the supper 
was cooked and eaten, the evening was passed in such 
diversion as the pilgrimage permitted, the night watch 
was set and the long day ended with the deep slumber 
of the weary body and the free mind. 

90. From Fort Hall to the Grande Ronde. — Thus 
they traveled day after day in wearisome routine 
through June, July and August without serious mis- 
hap, reaching Fort Hall on August 2 7th.^22 Here, as 
with former parties the question arose whether they 
should leave their wagons or not. The road was un- 
tried, their cattle were footsore, the season was late. 
To many it seemed best to follow the example of their 
predecessors and exchange their wagons for pack- 
horses; but Dr. Whitman advised them not to do so. 
He knew the way as well as anybody; he offered his 
services as guide to the Columbia and the emigrants 
finally yielding to his persuasion determined to con- 
tinue the journey as they had begun. ^-^ After a few 
days rest at Fort Hall they again yoked their oxen to 

^"This was the rear of the party. The advance with Dr. Whitman 
reached Fort Hall somewhat sooner. Whitman had joined the emi- 
grants at the Platte River, 

^^^Perhaps their decision was unavoidable. There were not enough 
pack horses obtainable to carry their goods. 



lis I'HE STORY OF OREGON 

the wagons and took up the march to the Columbia 
over the most toilsome and difficult stretch of the 
journey.^-* Now, with the autumnal storms at hand 
and hunger staring them in the face, it behooved the 
emigrants to press forward with incessant diligence. 
Dr. Whitman did his most valuable service to them 
and earned their everlasting gratitude by pressing 
home the danger of loitering on this dreary desert. ^-^ 
They forded the Snake with all their goods by raising 
the wagon beds on blocks. Up the desolate canyon of 
the Burnt River, where the banks were obstructed by 
a tangle of fallen timber, they drove along the bed of 
the stream and upon the ridge at its head for the first 
time since leaving Independence, they had to dig a 
roadway. From that time until they reached the 
Grande Ronde Valley travel was everywhere difficult 
because of the broken country, but there was no lin- 
gering, and on October ist, the main body of the emi- 
grants camped in that lovely spot and rested their 
eyes upon its running brooks and emerald pastures 
encircled with mountain forests of pine. It was a 
veritable oasis and they would fain have stayed where 
nature promised so bountifully, but starvation drove 
them onward and pitiless winter threatened at the 
fore. On October 2nd, as they rose in the morning the 
mountain sides were white with snow. 

"*The emigrants of 1843 had not escaped the error of believing that 
when they had reached Fort Hall the journey was nearly finished. This 
accounts for the failure of their provisions before they came to 
Waiilatpu. 

'^^Much of the dreary desert now bears luxuriant orchards or 
waves with verdant alfalfa, all because of irrigation. 



THE EMIGRATION OF 1 843 119 

91. From the Grande Ronde to the Willamette Val- 
ley. — Between the Grande Ronde Valley and the plains 
of the Umatilla towered the giant ridge of the Blue 
Mountains covered with heavy timber through which 
a road must be cut for the wagons. None had ever 
gone that way before. Forty stalwart pioneers swung 
their axes in the primeval forest to clear the way, and 
ever onward in their rear the heavy wagons, with the 
household goods and the women and children, toiled. ^^® 
Five days sufficed for the passage of the Blue Moun- 
tains and brought the emigrants in sight of the plains 
of the Umatilla, where the wide horizon stretched away 
to Waiilatpu. On October 10, 1843, they camped 
within three miles of Waiilatpu, Whitman's mission, 
and replenished their failing provisions from the fields 
and gardens which he in his zeal had planted. Be- 
tween Walla Walla and Vancouver the emigrants met 
their severest trials. Some who left their cattle to 
winter at the mission almost perished of hunger. 
Some were imperiled in the Columbia at the Cascades 
and The Dalles as they tried to pass the rapids on frail 
rafts. All were subjected to the rains of autumn and the 
bitter cold of the mountains. But most of the stock 
was ferried across at The Dalles, driven to Vancouver 
and then brought back. Wagons, goods and families 
were transported by water and, before the end of No- 
vember the emigrants were safe in the Willamette 

"^J. W. Nesmith carried an axe all the way through the Blue Moun- 
tains and was loved by everybody for his steady strength of body 
and character. He had a singular power to make friends, and what 
is better keep them. The Applegates were among the choppers and 
so was Burnett. 



120 THE STORY OF OREGON 

Valley, where they found a civilized government and 
code of laws ready to guide their efforts in building a 
state. 

92. The First Winter in Oregon. — The selection of 
land claims was generally put off till spring on account 
of bad weather. Those who had means procured 
supplies from the Hudson Bay Company. Those who 
had no means went to work. Oregon City was a 
favorite resort during the winter of 1843-4. Here 
there was a better social life than elsewhere in the 
valley. There was also work to be had, and the new- 
comers showed that the journey had not impaired their 
mental vigor by founding a circulating library with 
the books they had brought across the continent. 
This influx of almost a thousand Americans decided 
the question of the ownership of Oregon and largely 
determined the future of the state. The leaders of 
the emigrants became the leaders in social and poHtical 
life and held their preeminence for many years. 



CHAPTER XIV 

Under the Provisional GovERNMENt 

93. Close of Jason Lee's Career. — Of the settlers 
who reached Oregon in the fall of 1843, not all were 
friendly to the Methodist missions. Many believed 
that the mission at Salem under the direction of Jason 
Lee had unwisely diverted its labors from the Indians 
to the white colonists and in particular there was com- 
plaint that it held too much land. Disquieted by this 
sentiment, which he knew to be prevalent among the 
settlers, and by reports which had reached him that 
damaging accounts of his conduct had been laid before 
the Methodist Missionary Society, Jason Lee resolved 
to make another journey to the east. On February 
3, 1844, he left Oregon for the last time, saihng by way 
of the Sandwich Islands, to plead with the govern- 
ment for the security of the mission lands and with the 
Missionary Society for his own good name. In the 
latter purpose he had been forestalled by his enemies, 
for his successor as Superintendent of the Mission was 
already on the way to Oregon v/hen Lee sailed. At 
Washington he conversed with the President and a 
number of eminent men who reassured him concerning 
the safety of the mission claim, though they could 
promise him nothing definite. His defense before the 
Missionary Society did not lead to his restoration as 
Superintendent. Disappointed, he retired to Stan- 
stead, the little town at the head of Lake Memphrema- 
gog, where he was born, and there on March 12, 1845, 



122 THE STORY OF OREGON 

he died. His services to Oregon were very great. Be- 
sides actually planting the first colony in the Willamette 
Valley his powerful mind stamped a religious and 
literary character upon Oregon life which persists to 
this day. The interesting fact that crime was almost 
unknown in the Willamette Valley for several years 
may be ascribed largely to the excellent influence of 
the missionaries. The permanent side of his work 
was mental and spiritual. Its outward achievements 
were soon swept away or greatly changed. His 
manual labor school was sold to the Oregon Institute 
which was removed to Salem in 1844, and in June of 
that year his successor, the Rev. George Gary, dissolved 
the old mission and sold its buildings. 

94. Revision of the Code. — Thus Jason Lee, the 
true founder of a commonwealth, took his leave of 
Oregon, but the tide of events stayed not for him. 
On the second Tuesday in May, 1844, the election of 
the legislative and executive committees under the 
new Provisional Government took place. ^-^ Power fell 
largely into the hands of the newcomers of 1843 who 
proceeded to cure some of the defects in the funda- 
mental law. Convinced that no government can sur- 
vive without raising taxes, they provided for a regular 
levy and insured its collection by ordaining that no 

"^Dr Elijah White addressed the committee in favor of the law. 
In December of this year, 1844, an act was passed to erect a jail at 
Oregon City from the proceeds of Ewing Young's estate. The 
eagerness of the colonists for laws and a jail contrasts curiously with 
the fact that crime was virtually unknown among them. Perhaps 
there never was a community in the world where life came nearer to 
the ideal of the golden age than in this pioneer colony of Oregon. 



UNDER THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT 123 

person who declined to pay taxes should enjoy the 
protection of the colony. His land might be taken 
from him or his cattle stolen and he would have no 
redress. He was also deprived of the right to vote. 
The weak executive committee was abolished and a 
governor substituted, while the judiciary was re-formed. 
Besides these changes in the provisional code the legis- 
lative committee of 1 844 repealed the land law and 
enacted a better one. The right to take up claims was 
restricted to free whites over eighteen years of age, and 
to widows and white men under eighteen who were heads 
of families. The claimant must also be an actual 
resident. None of the early legislation of Oregon was 
more important than the land laws because it was the 
hunger for independent farms that had been the funda- 
mental inducement to the emigrants. 

95. Marriage and Liquor Laws. — The marriage law 
which the committee adopted forms a curious comment 
upon the social conditions in the new colony where the 
men largely outnumbered the women. The marriage 
of a man of sixteen with a girl of twelve was legalized, 
though the consent of their parents was required. 
It should also be recorded to the credit of the legisla- 
tive committee that it passed a prohibitory liquor law, 
one of the first in history for so large a territory. In 
the sentiment which inspired it we may undoubtedly 
trace the wholesome influence of Jason Lee. 



128 



"^This remark was often made by Judge C. B. Bellinger, the suc- 
cessor of Matthew P. Deady in the United States District Court. 
Judge Bellinger was a man of wide culture, liberal sentiments and 
profound knowledge of pioneer conditions. 



124 THE STORY OF OREGON 

96. Ratification of the Provisional Government. — 

The legislative committee of 1844, although it made 
great changes in the Organic Law neglected to submit 
its acts to the people for ratification. This omission 
was corrected by the succeeding committee which 
made further alterations and brought the government 
of Oregon into close resemblance to that of an ordinary 
American state. The provisional government thus 
revised and improved was finally ratified by popular 
vote July 26, 1845. The thoughtful student will be 
interested in tracing the slow growth of the pioneer 
community from a condition of primitive anarchy 
where all men were their own masters to an organized 
commonwealth where each had sacrified much of his 
original liberty for the good of the whole, and indeed for 
his own greater good. The development of govern- 
ment in Oregon was literally by a process of con- 
tract.129 

""The philosophic and enlightened Jesse Applegate maintained 
that the legislature had no law-making power except such as the 
people had expressly delegated, all the rest inhered in the citizens. 
We may find here, if we like, the fundamental principal of the initia- 
tive and referendum indigenous in a genuine American brain. 



CHAPTER XV 

The Emigrations of 1844 and 1845 

97. Emigration of 1844. — The migratory impulse in 
the Mississippi Valley which had brought a large com- 
pany to Oregon in 1843 continued to operate for a 
number of years. In the spring of 1844 it was stimu- 
lated by good reports from those who had gone before. 
They had driven their ox-wagons through to the 
Willamette Valley and opened the road. The expense 
of the journey was found upon the whole to be moderate. 
Prices were high for produce and markets open, while 
the soil was found to be as fertile as any in the world. 
The word which went back across the mountains to the 
eager and adventurous souls from the Mississippi to the 
Alleghanies was encouraging in every way.*^° In the 
spring of 1844 ^ company of some 1,400 persons took 
the trail for Oregon. A wet season delayed them on 
the plains of the Platte and made their arrival late at 
Fort Hall so that their provisions ran out and they 
were compelled to subsist on such scanty supplies as 
they could obtain at Walla Walla and from the cunning 
savages. Moreover the autumn rains overtook them 
on the way and although most of them finally reached 
the Willamette Valley it was in a state of destitution 
for many and through great hardships for all. 

98. Difficulties of the New Settlers. Progress. — 
Naturally they repined while the winter weather lasted 
and their complaints were embittered by the lack of 

""Schafer quotes their enthusiastic letters to their friends. 



126 THE STORY OF OREGON 

supplies in the colony. The Hudson Bay Company 
had little or nothing in the way of food and clothing 
to sell at that time, while the emigrants of the preced- 
ing year had drawn heavily upon the hospitality and 
supplies of the colonists. Hence until spring broke 
there was some actual suffering among the new arrivals 
and much discomfort. But with the sunshine and 
flowers gaiety succeeded to gloom. The latest emi- 
grants took up land, sowed their fields and before an- 
other winter they had become an integral part of the 
community. They were old settlers themselves ready 
to help welcome another band of emigrants from the 
states. In the fall of 1845 some three thousand came, 
just about doubling the population of the country and 
raising the total vote for governor above one thousand 
at the next election. By the close of 1845 three new 
counties had been organized, Polk, west of the Willa- 
mette and Vancouver and Lewis north of the Columbia. 
The American settlements in the two latter began with 
members of the immigrant party of 1844. Some of 
them wintered at Vancouver and the next spring, 1845, 
followed M. T. Simmons to Puget Sound where they 
took up claims. ^^^ 

99. Submission of the Hudson Bay Company. — 
In apportioning taxes the legislative committee natur- 
ally met the difficulty of assigning a status to the Hud- 

"*0n the way they passed the cabin of John R. Jackson who also 
belonged to the emigrants of 1844 and had settled north of the Cow- 
litz. The Hudson Bay Company already had farms opened at 
Puget Sound under the name of the Puget Sound Agricultural Com- 
pany. 



THE) EjMIGRAl^IONS OI^ 1 844 AND 1 845 127 

son Bay Company's employees and property under 
the provisional government. If the Company de- 
clined to pay taxes it would become an outlaw and 
receive no protection. Thus its condition would be 
perilous, for the colonists were now numerous and 
many of them hostile to everything British while the 
government at London seemed in no haste to promise 
assistance in case of difficulty. In these circumstances 
the committee opened negotiations with Dr. McLough- 
lin and finally, in 1845, received his consent to pay 
taxes and accept the benefits of the laws of Oregon. 
With this action the fur company disappears from the 
politics of the coast as a separate power. Dr. Mc- 
lyoughlin deserves high commendation for his action 
in this matter as well as for his humanity to the emi- 
grants and his consistent generosity; but he was mis- 
understood both in Oregon and England, receiving 
blame when he should have been praised. Weary of 
difficulties which seemed endless he resigned from the 
headship of the company in Oregon in the fall of 1845 
and went to live at Oregon City where he had property. 
Here he passed the remainder of his singularly beau- 
tiful and useful life. 



CHAPTER XVI 
Opening of the Southern Route 

100. White's Search for a Pass. — In the summer of 
1845 the legislative committee framed a memorial to 
Congress asking for a territorial government among 
other things, and entrusted it to Dr. Elijah White for 
transmission to Washington since he had determined 
to go there on business of his own. Just before setting 
out White explored somewhat in the mountains east 
of the Willamette Valley for a pass by which emigrants 
might come directly to the upper Willamette and 
avoid the Blue Mountains and the dangers at The 
Dalles. He did not succeed in discovering the pass 
but he seems to have had strong faith that it existed 
and to have told one of the emigrant parties, which 
he met near Fort Boise, that the Willamette Valley 
might be reached by a route which would avoid the 
hardships that had befallen those who went by way of 
The Dalles and save some two hundred miles of travel. 
His plan was to follow the Malheur River for a certain 
distance and then strike across the unknown country 
to the pass supposed to exist in the mountains at the 
head of the Willamette Valley. 

101. A Misguided Party. — Either misled by White's 
advice or for some reason unknown, about one hundred 
and fifty wagons from the emigration of 1845 undertook 
to follow this precarious route with Stephen H. L. 
Meek for a guide. For some days they kept to an 



OPENING OF THE SOUTHERN ROUTE 129 

abandoned trail of the fur trappers but after that the 
desolate Malheur Mountains had to be crossed where 
the stones wore the feet of the oxen to the quick and 
grass and water could not be found. Pushing forward 
through a scorched and barren land, thirst and starva- 
tion brought death upon the weaker members of the 
party and broke the spirit of the strongest. Since 
their stock was perishing unless water was soon dis- 
covered, they could neither go forward nor return, 
and one of those terrible tragedies of the desert seemed 
imminent in which whole bands of human beings are 
swallowed up by death leaving no record of their suffer- 
ings but their whitened bones. But this fate was 
happily averted. After days of search in every direc- 
tion some of the outriders came upon a tributary of the 
Des Chutes River which the surviving adventurers 
joyfully followed down to The Dalles and thence made 
their way to the Willamette Valley. 

102. Exploration of the Southern Route. — The other 
emigrants of 1845, of whom there were altogether about 
three thousand, also suffered more or less between Fort 
Hall and the Willamette Valley, like those who had 
preceded them. Indeed this had come to be recog- 
nized as the most difficult part of the entire journey 
and many efforts were made to discover a better route. 
In 1845 S. K. Barlow obtained from the legislature a 
charter for a road around Mount Hood which would 
enable travelers to reach the Valley without making 
the passage at The Dalles. He actually constructed 
the road but it remained difficult to traverse and it was 
agreed that a better one was desirable. With the 



130 THE STORY OF OREGON 

purpose of opening such a route Jesse Applegate, with 
his brother Lindsay, and a party of fifteen men left 
their homes in Polk county, June 22, 1846, to seek for 
a practicable opening into the Valley from the south. 
To the foot of the Siskiyou range they had only to 
follow the California trail which was by that time well 
beaten. Their only departure from it was to lay their 
course through the canyon of the Umpqua instead of 
traversing the high ridges adjacent to it where the 
savages had harassed the early travelers. At the 
Siskiyous, being then only six miles from the Califor- 
nia line, they turned eastward and by practicable 
passes attained the summit of the Cascades on July 
4, 1846, whence they soon reached the Klamath River 
and obtained a beautiful view of its fertile valley. 
Making their way up the Klamath River they reached 
Klamath Lake, rounded its southern end and passed 
on, with ceaseless vigilance against the treacherous 
Modocs, to Lost River, which they forded on a ledge 
of rock. Steadily forging ahead by a difficult but not 
impracticable route through a rocky desert inter- 
spersed with springs and oases, they came, on July 8, 
to the ridge which divides the lake region of Oregon 
from the Humboldt River and the basin of Great Salt 
Lake. As the explorers pressed forward toward the 
Humboldt River they did not escape the miseries of 
the desert. Heat and thirst tormented them and the 
irons and ashes of some wagons which they found in 
a lonely canyon seemed to warn them of impending 
doom. But they were not the men to forsake their 
purpose either for superstitious or real terrors. July 



OPENING OF THE SOUTHERN ROUTE 131 

1 8th, brought them to the Humboldt River which they 
followed until they came to an extensive meadow where 
they camped and rested three days to recruit their 
horses, resuming the march on the 25th by a route 
where grass and water were abundant. Their purpose 
was to explore through to Bear River, "^ but before they 
reached it their provisions ran short and Jesse Apple- 
gate with four others proceeded to Fort Hall for sup- 
plies while the rest of the party pushed on to the des- 
tination. 

103. Emigrants on the Southern Route. — While 
Jesse Applegate and his party were at Fort Hall, 
August, 1846, the emigrants of that year were passing. 
He represented to them truthfully that the southern 
route by which he had come to Fort Hall was prefer- 
able in many respects to the road along the Snake and 
Columbia Rivers. The grass was everywhere better 
except in the alkali desert, which might be avoided for 
the most part, while in the Klamath, Rogue and Ump- 
qua valleys it was both excellent and plentiful with 
abundance of water. There were no mountains to 
cross except the Cascades which offered an easier pass 
than the one on the Barlow road south of Mt. Hood. 
Persuaded by these facts an emigrant caravan of about 
a hundred wagons chose the southern route. They 
left Fort Hall August 9, 1846, and reached the ren- 
dezvous of Jesse Applegate 's party at Thousand 
Springs in the Humboldt region on the 12th. Here 
it was settled that the Applegates with all but two of 

"'About sixty miles from Fort Hall. 



132 THE STORY OF OREGON 

their men should push ahead in company with volun- 
teers from the emigrants to blaze and cut a road for 
the wagons which were to follow with Levi Scott and 
David Goff for guides. The advance party did their 
work faithfully and there is no fault to find with the 
guides; but the emigrants, in spite of urgent counsel 
from Jesse Applegate, lingered on their dangerous way 
during the pleasant days of autumn and, most unhap- 
pily, they had no Marcus Whitman to spur them on- 
ward by incessant rebukes. The chill rains of October 
caught some of the belated emigrants in the Rogue 
River Valley sixty miles from the Umpqua canyon 
which they only reached on the 4th of November, so 
worn with travel were their miserable cattle, and, in 
the narrow passage, some who had abandoned their 
wagons were compelled to wade for miles through the 
swollen stream with their enfeebled bodies chilled to 
the bone. In the Umpqua Valley they ate the last of 
their provisions and undoubtedly many would have 
perished had not timely succor arrived from the Apple- 
gates and their comrades. It was February, 1847, 
before the last of the emigrants found shelter in Fort 
Umpqua. The sufferings of the first party to pass 
over it somewhat discredited the southern route. 
Still in the fall of 1847 Levi Scott guided another band 
of emigrants over it who reached the Willamette Valley 
in prime condition and in good season. Thus its 
desirability was established and during the troubles 
with the Indians in the north which now broke out 
it pioved of great use. It was the explorations of 



OPENING OF THE SOUTHERN ROUTE 133 

Jesse Applegate's party that opened up southern 
Oregon to settlement. *^^ 

*"In 1849 he removed from Polk County to Yoncalla in the Umpqua 
Valley and his brother Charles settled near him. Lindsay Applegate 
chose a site on Ashland Creek for his home. It was where Ashland, 
now stands and on the line of the road he had helped open. The 
descendants of these brothers still dwell in the verdant meadows 
of the Klamath country. 



CHAPTER XVII 

The Wpiitman Massacre and the Cayuse War 

104. The Massacre. — The return of Marcus Whit- 
man from the East with the emigrants of 1843 availed 
Uttle for his pining missions. The Indians received 
him with fickle enthusiasm, but they soon resumed 
their impudent, half -hostile conduct and the mission- 
aries had less and less influence over them as the years 
passed. In the summer of 1847 the children of the 
passing emigrants were suffering from measles/^^ and 
of course the disease was communicated to the In- 
dians. ^^^ Dr. Whitman treated both whites and savages 
with the same remedies. The former recovered while 
the latter almost always died. This was clearly an 
unhappy consequence of their habits of life but the 
poor creatures explained it by saying that Whitman 
was giving them poison instead of medicine and they 
resolved to treat him as they did their own medicine 
men whose sorcery failed. A plot was formed to 
murder Dr. Whitman on November 29, 1847, and it was 
carried out. In the afternoon of that day the devoted 
missionary who had given his best years to the welfare 
of the Indians was massacred by them together with 

"*When we read of the plagues which attacked the immigrants it 
seems astonishing that so many of them reached their destination. 
They must have been of hardier frames than the men and women 
of our day, thpugh, perhaps after all, their children would display 
the same qualities if necessity demanded it. 

""They would have caught it from the garments they stole if in 
no other way. 



THE WHITMAN MASSACRE AND THE CAYUSE WAR 135 

his wife and seven other persons. Within a few days 
five more whites were slain while some fifty women 
and children, emigrants staying at the station for the 
most part, were taken captive to be held as hostages 
against the vengeance of the colonists in the Willa- 
mette Valley. The effects of the Whitman massacre 
were felt both in the Willamette Valley and at Wash- 
ington, the capital of the Nation. 

105. Release of the Captives. — Undoubtedly the 
captives held by the Cayuses as well as Spalding and 
his family at Lapwai owed their Hves to the energetic 
action of the officers of the Hudson Bay Company. 
With all expedition after the massacre, Agent McBean 
sent a messenger from Walla Walla to Vancouver with 
the news which was received at the fort on December 
7, 1847, and by the next day had spread through the 
Valley exciting fears all the more terrible because the 
extent of the massacre was unknown and what might 
follow could only be imagined. Many believed that 
the Indians would fall upon the colony from all sides 
in a concerted attack for the extermination of the 
whites. From Vancouver, Peter Skeene Ogden set 
out with all speed for the country of the Cayuses and 
by the exercise of that wonderful influence which the 
fur company had gained over the savages by years of 
justice and kindly firmness he obtained the release of 
the captives and despatched them with the Spaldings 
to the Willamette Valley where their woes were miti- 
gated by the care of sympathizing friends. Drawing 
heavily upon their slender resources and straining their 
credit with the Hudson Bay Company, the colonists 



136 THE STORY OF OREGON 

equipped a regiment of troops which proceeded to the 
Cay use country in midwinter under CorneHus Gilliam, 
and after months of exasperating warfare with the 
Indians brought them partially to terms. ^^'^ 

""Hostilities continued fitfully till the spring of 1850 when five of 
the murderers were secured. They were executed at Oregon City 
on June 3, 1850. 



CHAPTER XVIII 
Oregon Made a Territory 

106. A Memorial to Congress. — With the troops on 
their way to the Cayuse war went Joe Meek bearing 
a memorial to Congress which the Oregon legislature 
had prepared in their dire emergency and entrusted 
to him for delivery. It recounted the calamity which 
had befallen the colony and told of the well-grounded 
fear that many of the powerful tribes had formed an 
alliance against the settlements. The memorialists 
declared that they had not the means to repel attacks 
so formidable, and recalling how often they had 
hitherto appealed in vain to the national government 
for protection, protesting their unwavering loyalty 
to the country and pleading their rights as citizens, 
they reiterated the prayer that Congress should aid 
them in the extremity of their distress and grant them 
the permanent benefit of the laws of the Union. "We 
shall look with glowing hopes and restless anxiety for 
the coming of your laws and your arms." Thus ran 
their pathetic appeal. It was the 4th of March, 1848, 
before Joe Meek and his nine companions could ar- 
range to separate from the army in the Cayuse coun- 
try and depart for the east. Once on the way, how- 
ever, they traveled swiftly and at the end of sixty days 
they were at St. Joseph, Missouri.^" Six days more 
brought them to St. Louis, whence the news of the 
'"O time and changel Who would call such traveling swift today? 



138 THE STORY OF OREGON 

Whitman massacre flashed over the telegraph to every 
part of the country. 

107. End of Joint Occupation. — It came at a critical 
moment. During the five years which followed the 
great emigration in 1843, the Oregon question agitated 
the country incessantly. Meetings to urge Congress 
to act were held in many towns of the Mississippi 
Valley. In July, 1843, an Oregon Convention was held 
at Cincinnati that was attended by a hundred delegates 
and whose proceedings interested the whole country. 
This convention declared for 54° 40' as the northern 
boundary of Oregon under the impulse of stern hos- 
tility to Great Britain. The Democratic party sym- 
pathized with this program so strongly that it was 
made part of their platform in 1844, and their candi- 
date, James K. Polk, went into office on a wave of the 
"fifty-four forty or fight" enthusiasm. Tyler went 
out of office March 4, 1845, with **the one wish" of 
settling the Oregon controversy unfulfilled. Polk 
took up the task where his predecessor had left it and 
in spite of the slogan which had helped to elect him 
offered to compromise on the 49th parallel, but Great 
Britain refused, and when the President finally with- 
drew his offer, stating that no further concessions 
would be made, and terminated the joint occupation 
arrangement by authority of Congress, war seemed 
imminent."^ Wise counsels on both sides averted 

"'The war feeling was stronger in Oregon than in any other part 
of the country, but it was strong enough everywhere. A British 
vessel of war was anchored in the Columbia and Douglas, who had 
succeeded McLoughlin, mounted cannon at Vancouver. The pioneers 
made many threats. 



OREGON MADE A TERRITORY 139 

the calamity however. In June, 1846, Great Britain 
signified her readiness to accept the 49th parallel which 
she had refused so often, a treaty to that effect was 
signed on June 15, 1846, and Oregon became definitely 
a part of the United States. 

108. Oregon Made a Territory.— But for all that it 
continued under the provisional government three 
years longer. Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois pre- 
sented a bill to erect Oregon into a territory at the 
session of 1846-7, but the clause forbidding slavery 
which he copied from the First Organic Law^^^ excited 
the hostility of the pro-slavery southerners and it was 
rejected. James Buchanan, who was then Secretary 
of State, thought it worth while to try to soothe the 
disappointment of the Oregonians by a letter notable 
for smoothness rather than point, and Thomas H. 
Benton, their tireless friend in placing the blame upon 
Calhoun encouraged them to hope for action at the next 
session of Congress. When Congress met President 
Polk vigorously pleaded the cause of Oregon in his 
message, but the pro-slavery opposition was no less 
virulent than before and might have succeeded in 
obtaining further delay had not public opinion, fired 
by the news of the Whitman massacre, irresistibly 
demanded action. Joe Meek reached St. Louis on 
May 17, 1848, and gave his terrible report to the coun- 
try. Going thence to Washington he delivered his de- 
spatches to the President who at once transmitted them 
to Congress with an urgent message. The opposition 

"'The Oregon pioneers copied it from the ordinance of 1787, which 
established the Northwest Territory. 



140 THE STORY OF OREGON 

then reluctantly gave way, and on August 14, 1848, 
Oregon was made a territory of the Union. General 
Joseph Lane of Indiana who had become prominent 
in the Mexican war was appointed the first territorial 
governor by President Polk, while Joseph L. Meek, 
who is affectionately known in history as "Joe" Meek, 
was made United States Marshal in recognition of his 
valorous activities. Late in August Governor Lane 
with Meek and others set out for Oregon by the Santa 
F^ route. From San Francisco they finished the 
journey by water, reaching Oregon City, the temporary 
capital, on March 2, 1849, and the next day Governor 
Lane proclaimed that he had entered on the duties of 
his office and that the laws of the United States were 
thenceforth to be in force in Oregon."** 

""From June 3, 1845, to March 3, 1849, George Abernethy was 
governor of Oregon under the provisional government. This in- 
cludes the entire period between the disuse of the executive committee 
and the appointment of Lane. Lane resigned June 18, 1850, and from 
1851 to 1859 represented Oregon in Congress. In 1859 he was 
elected to the Senate for the short term of two years and in 1860 was 
nominated for Vice-President with Breckenridge. After this date 
Lane's southern sympathies made him unpopular in Oregon and he 
lived in retirement, dying in 1881. His services in the Indian wars 
were of great value. 



CHAPTER XIX 

Condition of Oregon in 1848 
109. Oregon in 1848.— Before the beginning of 
Autumn, 1848, the Cayuse war had been brought to a 
close and Congress had erected Oregon into a territory. 
At about the same time news reached the settlers that 
gold had been discovered in California in the preceding 
January. Profound economic changes in the territory 
followed upon this discovery, but before describing 
them it may be best to glance at the progress which 
Oregon had made in the fourteen years since Jason Lee 
came over the mountains with Wyeth and planted the 
seeds of civilization on the banks of the Willamette. 
Of course conditions were still primitive but the savages 
had almxost disappeared from the Valley, the rule of the 
Hudson Bay Company had given way to American 
law, and the irregular industry of the trappers and 
himters had been succeeded by farming and stock rais- 
ing. The white population amounted to some 12,000 
persons in 1848 and the best land of the Valley had 
been taken up; but comparatively little had been 
fenced in. Most of the country was still an open range 
where cattle freely roamed and grazed. Opulent 
settlers had herds of 2,000 head or more. The grass 
was luxuriant and the natural increase of the cattle 
provided an easy living for their owners. The free 
life of the range was more attractive to the young men 
of the colony than plowing and cultivating the soil, 



142 THE STORY OF OREGON 

and therefore we read without surprise that com- 
paratively Uttle land was farmed. From twenty to 
fifty acres of grain would be found on a claim of 640 
acres. The low price of grain and the scarcity of im- 
plements also contributed to make agriculture irk- 
some. Wheat was thrashed by driving horses over the 
sheaves, ^^^ and the usual price was sixty-two and one- 
half cents a bushel, though in 1845 after the great in- 
rush of immigrants it rose to a dollar and a half. In 
1848 there were nine gristmills in the territory, while 
numerous sawmills made lumber cheap and plentiful. 
110. Discomforts of the Pioneers. — Foreign trade 
had not thriven as well as the pioneers expected. It 
was somewhat discouraged by the dangers at the 
mouth of the Columbia where a number of ships were 
wrecked about the year 1848, but the principal 
impediment was the lack of a circulating medium. 
Coin was very scarce. Wheat, orders on merchants, 
and government paper all passed current within the 
colony, but of course outsiders would not receive them 
in exchange for manufactured goods. Hence it was 
impossible for the settlers to procure civilized clothing. 
Children went to school wearing a single garment which 
resembled the Roman toga. Men and women were 
clad in buckskin. Sometimes a gown was pieced to- 
gether from on old blanket or from the remnants of 
grain bags. Judges went barefoot and legislators were 
hard put to it to buy a new coat. They had abundant 
wealth but they lacked the common comforts of life 

*"The first thrashing machine was built at Oregon City in 1848 by 
Wallace and Wilson. It became popular immediately. 



CONDITION OF OREGON IN 1 848 143 

because they could not exchange for it. Schoolbooks 
were also scarce. An edition of Webster's Spelling 
book was printed at Oregon City in 1847, but this ex- 
cellent work could not impart a complete education. 
Arithmetics, geographies and the like were also needed 
and they were not to be had. Internal communica- 
tion was still slow and difficult. There were some 
small boats on the rivers but not many. Heavy 
articles were transported in ox wagons and horseback 
riding was the favorite method of going about. Much 
practice made the people good riders. Young men 
went courting on their ponies with their blankets in 
a roll behind the saddle. It was the fashion to camp 
on the cabin floor at bedtime and ride away after 
breakfast the next morning. Young people married in 
their teens and families were large. Oregon City, with 
a population of six hundred, was the largest town in 
Oregon. Portland was but a hamlet with two frame 
and several log houses. ^''^ Salem was a little village, and 
Eugene, Albany and Corvallis were still only land 
claims. 

111. Pioneer Schools. — The settlers had not for- 
gotten education in spite of their hardships and 
the scarcity of books. The common school system had 
not yet been organized. The Catholics already had 
three schools, one for boys at St. Paul, while at both 
Oregon City and St. Mary they had built schools for 

"'The site of Portland, 640 acres, was taken up by Overton in 1843. 
He sold it in 1845 to Love joy and Pettygrove, who laid out the town 
and sold lots to settlers. The first house was a log cabin at the corner 
of Front and Washington streets, built in 1844. 



144 THE STORY OF OREGON 

girls. Jason Lee's Oregon Institute was flourishing 
at Salem. At Rickreall in Polk county there was a 
protestant school called the Jefferson Institute. Pacific 
University at Forest Grove originated in 1846 with 
a school, afterward Tualitin Academy, which Harvey 
Clark taught on his land claim. Mrs. Tabitha Brown, 
who came to Oregon in 1846 by the Southern route, 
joined him and opened an orphans' school in a log 
cabin on his land where by 1 848 she had forty children 
enrolled. In that year the Reverend G. H. Atkinson 
arrived with authority from the Congregational Home 
Missionary Society to organize a college, and Clark 
gave him 200 acres of land while Tabitha Brown 
donated a city lot and $500 cash for the good cause. 
Of course their private schools now merged into the 
larger project, and in 1853 it was chartered as Pacific 
University. 

112. Social Conditions. — Ministers were more numer- 
ous than either doctors or lawyers. There was preach- 
ing everywhere on Sunday, though church buildings 
were not yet numerous. Oregon City, the metropolis, 
had three, and the only others besides the Catholic 
Churches, were at Salem and Hillsboro. The popula- 
tion in general was healthy, orderly and happy. Life 
was simple, but it was wholesome. Crime was almost 
unknown, the climate was mild and salubrious and 
labor was light. The period between 1834 ^^^ ^^4^ 
was the golden age of Oregon. The people now plunged 
into the feverish excitement of the gold discoveries 
and the Arcadian simplicity of the Eden by the Wil- 
lamette passed away forever. 




A MOUNTAIN CANYON 



CHAPTER XX 

Discovery of Gold 

113. The Rush to the Diggings. — California was 
acquired by the United States by conquest in the 
Mexican War and its possession was confirmed by the 
treaty of February 2, 1848, which arranged the terms 
of peace. On January 24, ten days before the treaty 
was signed, gold was discovered on the American River 
about fifty miles above Sutter's fort. News of the 
discovery spread rapidly and soon great crowds were 
hurrying from all parts of Cahfornia to the diggings. 
Before winter the news had crossed the Rocky Moun- 
tains creating wild excitement everywhere. Thou- 
sands of men, both in the Atlantic states and in the 
Mississippi Valley, prepared to start for the land of 
gold as soon as spring should open. The easterners 
went by way of the Isthmus of Panama; those from 
the west followed the emigrant trail. Twenty-five 
thousand persons, nearly all men, were on the way as 
soon as spring opened and others followed them all the 
summer through. Thus emigration and settlement 
were diverted from the northern section of the Pacific 
Coast to Cahfornia which was settled up rapidly, far 
outstripping Oregon in the race for population."^ 

'"In 1850 California had 92,000 population, Oregon 14,000. In 
1870 Oregon, Washington and Idaho had 130,000, California 560,000. 
So much did the discovery of gold change the development of the 
country as it had begun under natural conditions. 



146 THE STORY OF OREGON 

114. The Gold Fever in Oregon. — The news that 
gold had been discovered in California was learned in 
Oregon toward the close of the summer of 1848, about 
the time when the Cay use war was concluded. It 
produced the same excitement there as in the rest of 
the country. Hired hands left their work, soldiers 
deserted, the servants of the Hudson Bay Company 
forgot their traditional loyalty, farmers forsook their 
farms and public officials resigned to take the trail for 
the land of gold. Within a year Oregon lost perhaps 
two-thirds of her adult male population. Some of 
them became permanent residents of California and 
helped to form the civilization of that interesting state, 
but most of them returned in a short time bringing 
with them coin to pay off debts, improve their farms, 
build houses and stimulate trade. The men who 
stayed quietly on their farms and raised supplies to 
feed the miners probably reaped a richer harvest than 
those who toiled in the diggings. The inrush of ad- 
venturers to California provided an eager market for 
all that could be produced in Oregon. Prices were 
high and times were good. To illustrate the impetus 
which Oregon agriculture received from the California 
demand it is worth while to mention that by 1851 
the orchards which had been set out in the Willamette 
Valley in 1847 began to bear; at Oregon City a good 
crop of apples and cherries was harvested and four 
bushels of apples were sold in San Francisco for $500. 
Moreover, though the tide of emigration set strongly 
toward California, Oregon was not badly slighted. 



DISCOVERY OF GOI.D 147 

Out of the 40,000 persons who came to the Coast in 
1850 Oregon received 8,000, which assured a steady if 
not exceptional growth. 



CHAPTER XXI 
Development. Indian Wars 
115. Internal Development. — Meanwhile the in- 
ternal development of Oregon proceeded apace. In 
1849 the legislature established the irreducible school 
fund and levied a tax for public schools. Boards of 
directors were also provided for, and regular school 
meetings authorized. Thus education passed under 
the control of the state, a move which tended to make 
social conditions more attractive to desirable settlers 
from the east. Another advance toward social stabil- 
ity was made when, September 27, 1850, Congress 
passed the "Donation Land Law." This act con- 
firmed the title of the original settlers to their claims 
by assigning to each family resident in the territory 
before 1850 a square mile of land, half going to the 
wife and half to the husband. Unmarried men re- 
ceived only 320 acres, while unmarried women re- 
ceived nothing, which seemed to smack of injustice, 
since it is admitted by everybody that the women 
had done fully as much as the men to overcome diffi- 
culties and build up a commonwealth. Male emigrants 
coming to Oregon between 1850 and 1853 received 
under the donation law 160 acres of land. If the man 
was married 160 more went to the wife. This pro- 
vision is said to have induced many young people to 
rush prematurely into matrimony.^" The special 

"*Some historians hold that the donation law retarded the develop- 
ment of the state by making the farms too large and the population 
too sparse. Certainly a square mile of land seems to be ample for 
the support of a single family. In 1854 Congress granted 160 acres 
to each orphan child of any emigrant who had died before 1850. 
Under this act Jason Lee's daughter held a claim. 



DEVELOPMENT. INDIAN WARS 149 

privileges under the donation law expired in 1855. 
After that time claims were taken up in Oregon under 
the general statutes of the United States. 

116. Settlements in Southern Oregon. — The southern 
route which Jesse Applegate and his comrades had 
opened was more or less used by immigrants each year 
and by 1850 some of them had begun to locate here 
and there on the attractive lands of the Rogue River 
and Umpqua Valleys. Naturally the continuous travel 
of pack trains back and forth between Oregon and 
California also made this part of the country better 
known and stimulated settlement. In the spring of 
1850 two parties entered the Umpqua Valley for the 
purpose of taking up land and laying out towns. One 
from Oregon was led by Jesse Applegate, the other was 
from California. The two parties united their interests 
and in consequence of their efforts settlers soon began 
to flock to the Valley of the Umpqua. The California 
prospectors pushed unremittingly northward in search 
of new diggings. Before long they had crossed the 
Siskiyous into Oregon and miners were to be found at 
many places in the Rogue River and Umpqua Valleys 
as early as 1 850. Prospecting and settlement went hand 
in hand. The Indians were troublesome, robbing and 
murdering without mercy whenever they dared, but 
upon the whole General Lane at the head of the set- 
tlers kept them pretty well in check up to the summer 
of 1851. 

117. Indian Troubles on Rogue River.— The time 
had now come when the Indians from Puget Sound to 
the Rogue River Valley, including those in Eastern 



150 THE STORY OF OREGON 

Washington and Oregon, began to perceive clearly the 
consequences which must follow from the constant 
influx of whites. They foresaw that they must lose 
their lands unless they could drive out the settlers and 
prevent others from coming. The result was a more 
or less concerted movement of the savages against the 
settlers all along the border and intermittent warfare 
which did not cease entirely until the power of the 
Modocs was destroyed in 1873. The Rogue River 
Indians had always been intolerant of intruders, 
treacherous, wily and cruel. The settlers did not make 
much effort to conciliate them. Isolated outrages 
finally, in 1851, merged into hard fighting and it was 
not until 1856 that the Rogue River tribes were en- 
tirely subdued and placed upon reservations. While 
the war continued settlements were founded at Coos 
Bay and Port Orford partly as bases for military opera- 
tions. Coal was discovered at Coos Bay and trade grew 
up with San Francisco. The strength of the whites 
in the Rogue River Country was greatly increased in 
the fall of 1 85 1 by the discovery of rich placers on 
Jackson Creek which attracted many prospectors from 
California, while in spite of the savagery of Indian war- 
fare settlers continued to take up land along the Rogue 
River and its branches. 

118. Before the close of the Rogue River War the 
Indians east of the mountains broke out into open 
hostilities in defense of their lands. The severe fight- 
ing began in 1855, and was not brought to an end till 
1858. Most of the tribes were united in a league 
against the whites, while the federal military authorities 



DEVEIvOPMENT. INDIAN WARS 151 

failed to cooperate effectively with the legislature of 
Oregon. This circumstance undoubtedly prolonged the 
war and needlessly increased the hardships of the set- 
tlers, but by the close of the year 1858 most of the In- 
dians had been compelled to enter into treaties by 
which they gave up their right to roam over the coun- 
try and consented to live upon reservations. From 
1 86 1 to 1869 there was again desultory Indian fighting 
east of the mountains in which the whites had little 
to boast of until General Crook took command of the 
federal troops. He soon compelled the savages to sue 
for peace, in 1868, and received the thanks of the 
Oregon legislature for bringing hostilities to a close. 
119. The Modoc Trouble. — With all the Oregon 
Indians the government at Washington pursued a 
policy of paternal indulgence which was seldom ap- 
preciated and sometimes excited contempt. It was 
particularly unfortunate with the Modocs, a tribe 
living about Klamath Lake and on the border between 
Oregon and California. These savages, under the 
leadership of a chief called Captain Jack, were treated 
with a lack of firmness which ultimately encouraged 
them to go on the warpath, in 1872. The troops and 
settlers were not very successful against them at first 
and the Indians gained a number of petty advantages 
which made them bolder than before. They com- 
mitted terrible outrages on the settlers and were able 
to escape direct attack by taking refuge in the lava 
beds of that district which are veined with fissures 
where parties could lie concealed and through which 
they could flee when pursued. Finally, in April, 1873, 



152 THE STORY OF OREGON 

Captain Jack's band fulfilled the measure of their 
crimes by treacherously murdering some peace com- 
missioners who were parleying with them. The mili- 
tary then began to act vigorously against them. In 
May, 1873, the fighting was brought to an end and in 
the following October Captain Jack and three of his 
companions were hanged, while the Modocs were re- 
moved to the Indian Territory. 

120. Oregon Admitted into the Union. — Besides his 
services in the Indian wars, General Joseph Lane, who 
was territorial delegate in Congress from 1851 to 1859, 
obtained much beneficial legislation for his constitu- 
ents. In 1852, for example, the mail service which 
had always been dilatory and inefiicient, was improved 
at his instance. He also secured an appropriation to 
open a military road from the Umpqua to the Rogue 
River Valley, and another from Scottsburg on the 
Umpqua to connect with this. General Lane also 
introduced a bill in 1856 for the admission of Oregon 
into the Union as a state, but owing to the slavery dis- 
sensions it did not pass. The territorial legislature, 
however, submitted to the electors in June, 1857, the 
question whether or not a constitutional convention 
should be held. The vote being favorable, the conven- 
tion was called to meet at Salem on the third Monday 
in August. The delegates chosen from the various 
counties attended, and after a discussion which lasted 
four weeks they agreed upon a state constitution which 
was duly submitted to the voters and ratified on the 
9th of November, 1857. 'The total number of votes 



DEVELOPMENT. INDIAN WARS 153 

was 10,400 of which 7,195 were in favor of the consti- 
tution. On February 14, 1859, Congress formally ad- 
mitted Oregon into the Union. "^ 

^"Washington became a state in 1889, Idaho in 1890. Both were 
originally parts of Oregon. 



CHAPTER XXII 

The Ini^and Empire 

121. Early Settlements in Eastern Oregon. — Whit- 
man and his fellow missionaries had shown as early as 
1837 that the land in the Walla Walla Valley was re- 
markably fertile, and the later efforts of that devoted 
pioneer proved how easily tracts apparently sterile 
might be made to produce abundant crops by irriga- 
tion. Still to the eyes of the passing immigrants the 
country in Oregon and Washington east of the Cas- 
cades presented but a desolate spectacle, and it was not 
till about 1855 that settlers began to feel attracted in 
that direction. By this time they had learned that 
great areas of the semi-arid region had rainfall enough 
to produce wheat without irrigation, while numerous 
valleys had been explored where crops of all kinds 
could be raised. The outbreak of Indian troubles in 
1855 retarded the settlement of eastern Oregon for 
ten years or more after that date, but on October 
31, 1858, General Harney of the Oregon military de- 
partment opened the Walla Walla Valley to settle- 
ment, and the fact that 2,000 claims were taken 
up there and in the Umatilla region during the 
next summer indicates how well the value of 
the land had become understood. Out of the emi- 
gration of 1859, which numbered some 30,000 souls, 
about 10,000 made Oregon and W^ashington their 
destination. Eight hundred people located in the 



THE INLAND EMPIRE 155 

Walla Walla Valley while others pushed on into the 
charming Yakima country, and still others began settle- 
ments in the Grande Ronde where the weary immigrants 
of 1843 had longed to tarry but dared not because it 
was so far from supplies and shelter. Now Walla 
Walla had become a distributing center whence pack 
trains permeated the whole Inland Empire and the 
dangers of isolation had partially passed away."® In 
the winter of 1 86 1-2 La Grande was founded and 
grew rapidly, while settlers began to cultivate the fer- 
tile soil of the surrounding valley. Great excitement 
followed the discovery of gold on the John Day and 
Powder Rivers in 1861. Prospectors flocked to the 
new diggings from California and the entire coast. 
Towns sprang up in a day when fresh mines were 
opened and vanished when they were exhausted, but 
there were permanent results also. The Powder River 
Valley was settled by farmers in the prosperous summer 
of 1862 and Baker City was founded. 

122. A Period of Great Activity. — This was a time of 
great activity throughout the Inland Empire. Mining 
flourished in numerous places, farming had begun at 
almost every accessible point and the business of trans- 
portation by pack trains was diligently pursued by 
enterprising men some of whom afterward made their 
mark in the state. Portland had become the great 
central market for the northwest and its growth was 
now rapid. Pack trains from The Dalles made regular 
trips into the John Day country, but those from Walla 

""A wagon road was built from Walla Walla into the Grande Ronde 
in 1863. 



156 THE STORY O^ OREGON 

Walla covered a much wider territory, some of them 
even crossing the Rocky Mountains and meeting steam- 
boat traffic on the Missouri from the east. 

123. The Flood of 1861 and the Winter that Fol- 
lowed. — A terrible flood devastated the entire coast 
region in the fall of i86i. Every river valley from 
California to Puget Sound was overflowed. Houses 
were swept away and property of all kinds destroyed. 
A winter followed of such severity that the pack trains 
could not penetrate the eastern region with supplies 
and the miners who had neglected to lay in provisions 
starved and froze in the inaccessible mountains. The 
next spring there was a great freshet in the Columbia 
which virtually annihilated the beginnings of settle- 
ment on its alluvial flats. This succession of mis- 
fortunes naturally checked the development of Oregon 
somewhat, but it was only for a moment. The sum- 
mer of 1862 was one of rapid growth, especially in the 
Inland Empire which received 10,000 immigrants be- 
fore fall. By 1870 this region of great possibilities 
was producing more wheat and other supplies than the 
mines could consume and the people were impatient 
for a railroad which might afford them an outlet to the 
markets of the world. ^^' 

"^The navigation of the Columbia was impeded by rapids here and 
there which made transhipments necessary so that water carriage 
was expensive. 



CHAPTER XXIII 
Internal Communication. Land Grants 

124. The Military Wagon Road. — The problem of 
internal communication has always been a serious one 
in Oregon. Even to this day it has not been entirely 
solved. The pioneers went about the country on horse- 
back and moved their heavy goods in ox- wagons. 
Later steamboats were placed on the rivers which of 
course made things much better for those who dwelt 
upon their banks but did little for others. Roads 
were needed everywhere but to build them required 
resources beyond the power of a young community to 
supply. Congress sought to aid Oregon in this im- 
portant particular by granting to the state the odd 
numbered sections in a strip six miles wide from 
Eugene to the eastern boundary for the construction 
of a military wagon road across the Cascade Moun- 
tains. The legislature turned this magnificent dona- 
tion over to a private corporation, The Oregon Cen- 
tral Military Wagon Road Company, which actually 
built a road to the summit of the Cascades, but it was 
never of much use. The road from Ashland to Kla- 
math over the old Applegate trail, which was opened 
in 1868, was preferred by most travelers. In 1873 the 
Oregon Central Military Wagon Road Company sold 
its right to a San Francisco corporation, and thus most 
of the benefit of the grant was forever lost to the state. 

126. Swamp and School Lands. — The early legis- 



158 THE STORY OF OREGON 

latures were not especially happy in the management 
of the land grants which the state received from Con- 
gress. In 1870 provisions were made for the selection 
and sale of swamp lands under the Act of 1850 which 
were so ill-considered that they actually retarded 
settlement and turned over large tracts to speculators 
almost without compensation. Oregon received from 
the government altogether 3,250,000 acres of land for 
the benefit of the irreducible school fund."^ In 1881 
when 500,000 acres had been sold the returns to the 
school fund amounted to $600,000. The Agricul- 
tural College which was established at Corvallis in 
1868, received a grant of 90,000 acres from Congress 
while the state university had 46,000 acres. The 
university was founded in 1862 and opened in 1867, 
when it had a fund of $75,000 from the sale of its 
lands."« 

126. Isolation of the Early Settlements. — Western 
Oregon has been divided by nature into three distinct 
regions, the valleys of the Rogue, the Umpqua and 
the Willamette Rivers, a narrow strip of arable coast 
being attached to each. These valleys are separated 
from one another by mountains more or less difficult 
to traverse like the states of ancient Greece, and in con- 
sequence the communities which settled them developed 
independently. There was little social or commercial 

^*^This fund was established by the legislature in 1849. 

"''Ten thousand dollars of this fund came from the proceeds of the 
confiscated estate of Dr. McLoughlin at Oregon City. This was 
restored to his heirs by the legislature. The citizens of Lane county 
raised fifty-two thousand dollars in aid of the university, which was 
invested in a site and the first building. 



INTERNAL COMMUNICATIONS. LAND GRANTS 159 

intercourse with outsiders. ^^^ In Eastern Oregon the 
natural barriers between the different parts are still 
more numerous and more difficult to traverse. There 
we find the valleys of the Powder, the Umatilla and 
the John Day Rivers, the Grande Ronde,the Klamath, 
and numerous little nooks like Eagle Valley, all 
separated by lofty mountains from their neighbors. 
Wagon roads were built between them at an early 
date but the people were not satisfied with this slow 
and difficult means of communication. As settle- 
ments multiplied and products increased the need of 
markets, the duties of government, the growing in- 
terests which all the inhabitants of the state possessed 
in common stimulated the demand for railroads. 

127. Railroad Building. — The numerous early rail- 
road projects finally culminated in two lines which 
were built from Portland along the east and west sides 
of the Willamette. Ground for the west side line was 
broken in Portland on April 14, 1868; that for the one 
on the east side two days later. For some time little 
work was done upon either because funds were lack- 
ing, but in August, 1868, the picturesque and adven- 
turous Ben Holliday, who had made his appearance 
in Oregon, bought out the east side road and began 
to push its fortunes with vigor. By December of the 
next year he had completed twenty miles, enough to 
secure title to a land grant in controversy between the 
companies. He then raised money by marketing 
bonds of his railroad in Germany, m.anaged by skillful 

""The Coos Bay region has always had more intimate commercial 
relations with San Francisco than with Portland. 



160 THE STORY OF OREGON 

intrigues to obtain control of the west side line and 
built southward on both sides of the river. In 1873 
the Oregon and California Railroad, as the east side road 
was now called, was completed to Roseburg which 
remained the terminus until 1887 when the Southern 
Pacific, which had then obtained possession, extended 
it to Ashland and united it finally with the California 
system. 

128. Henry Villard. — Ben Holliday having fallen 
into financial difficulties, the German bondholders in 
1876 gave the management of the Oregon and Cali- 
fornia Railroad to Henry Villard who was one of the 
truly great railroad builders of the last century. He 
carried out the majestic project of building the North- 
ern Pacific line and completed it to Portland in 1883. 
When the Oregon Railroad and Navigation Company 
was incorporated by Portland capitalists, in 1876, 
Villard was made its president. Under his manage- 
ment the lines of the company were built eastward to 
connect with the Union Pacific and northward into 
the wheat growing and mining regions of Washington. 
Its bridge over the Willamette at Portland, known as 
the "steel bridge," was completed in 1888 and the 
union station soon afterward. The railroad connecting 
Portland with Astoria was opened for traffic in 1898. 
Villard 's worthy successor in railroad building, James 
J. Hill, completed the great bridge over the Columbia 
at Vancouver and another only less magnificent over 
the Willamette in the fall of 1908. By way of these 
bridges the North Bank road runs trains between 



INTERNAL COMMUNICATIONS. LAND GRANTS 163 

Portland and Spokane. Thus Oregon has ample rail- 
road connections with the outer world, but its system 
of internal communication is still far from complete. ^^* 

"'The student will see from the. map that Oregon east of the Cas- 
cades and south of the Columbia is almost destitute of railroads. 
This isolates from the markets of the world a large and very fertile 
territory. 



CHAPTER XXIV 

Oregon Today 

129. Social Conditions. — At the present time, 1909, 
Oregon is a state with 600,000 population. It is still 
a land of equality as it was in the beginning. The 
inhabitants are strongly democratic in sentiment and 
inclined to take advanced views of political problems. 
The direct primary, the initiative and referendum 
and proportional representation have been incorpo- 
rated in the constitution while the voters display 
marked independence in casting their ballots. It is 
also a land of comfort, the per capita wealth of the 
state being somewhat more than $1,000 so that the 
political unrest cannot be ascribed to the pressure of 
want. Nor does ignorance prevail. On the contrary 
Oregon has an excellent common school system and 
the percentage of illiteracy is low. In the last few 
years the development of high schools has been rapid, 
partly under the benign stimulus of the state univer- 
sity. The university has reached the stage where it 
is well supported by the legislature. Popular prej- 
udice against the higher studies is dying out as it 
always has sooner or later in other states. The Agri- 
cultural College at Corvallis has naturally won popular 
affection more rapidly and has a larger attendance. 
Its work comes near to the daily life of the people be- 
ing concerned with horticulture, dairying and the 
mechanic arts. The normal school system of Oregon 
is still in an unsettled condition but its place in the 



OREGON TODAY 165 

scheme of education is of course assured. The best 
endowed denominational college in the state is the 
Pacific University at Forest Grove, but there are 
several others whose usefulness is admittedly great. 
Whitman College at Walla Walla in Washington, not 
far from the site of the labors and tragic death of 
Marcus Whitman, bids fair to become an institution 
of the foremost rank. Oregon has no large cities 
except Portland, but there are many towns of moderate 
size whose inhabitants enjoy most of the advantages 
of urban life. Free public libraries have been founded 
in most of them, in some cases through the unselfish 
efforts of women's clubs. Naturally the Portland 
Public Library is the largest and best in the state. 
It has about 80,000 volumes which circulate among 
400,000 borrowers annually. 

130. Industries. — The products of Oregon are ex- 
ceedingly diversified. Logging and lumbering form 
a very important industry as might be expected in a 
state where almost every section is well supplied with 
timber. Gold mining still flourishes, although the 
placers have usually been exhausted and the metal 
is now extracted from ores. Wheat raising is still the 
great agricultural resource of the Inland Empire, but 
in the Willamette Valley it has given way somewhat 
to fruit raising and dairying. Apples and prunes are 
produced everywhere in the Valley and of late years 
enterprising farmers have planted orchards of walnuts 
which give promise of abundant returns. Of course 
all the domestic animals are reared on the fertile farms 
of the Willamette. Angora goats have been intro- 



166 THE STORY OF bREGON 

duced with promising results, and dairying has been 
greatly developed, but in this direction there is still 
ample room for progress. The Umpqua Valley closely 
resembles the Willamette in its products, but in the 
Valley of the Rogue River there is a decided tendency 
to make fruit the principal crop owing to unusual 
natural advantages. The apple, the pear, the grape 
and the peach arc extraordinarily prolific in this 
region and the fruit is esteemed in the markets of the 
world for beauty and flavor as well as for keeping 
qualities. In the narrow strip of tillable land along 
the coast of Oregon dairying is everywhere pursued 
with great success. The coal mines in the region of 
Coos Bay steadily increase in importance. Several 
towns on the seashore have become flourishing sum- 
mer resorts. ^^^ The salmon industry has declined from 
its former importance owing to unwise methods of 
fishing, but wholesome regulations have been enacted 
which may, with the cooperation of the fishermen, 
ultimately restore the phenomenal runs of the time of 
Lems and Clark. 

131. Hood River. — Nowhere in the world, perhaps, 
has scientific fruit growing been pursued with such 
unwearied diligence and brilliant success as at Hood 
River. 

132. Irrigation. — The enviable conditions of rural 
life at Hood River result largely from the economic 
and educational influences of irrigation. The rainfall, 
which is sufficient to nourish luxuriant vegetation, is 

'"Empire City and Marshfield were founded in 1853. The first 
coal was shipped to San Francisco in 1855- 



OREGON TODAY 169 

supplemented by leading water over the orchards in 
ditches. This requires small farms, intelligent agri- 
culture and intimate cooperation among neighbors. 
It is therefore a great civilizing influence as well as 
an inestimable source of wealth. Irrigation in Oregon, 
as well as in other states which have areas of deficient 
rain, has been aided by the kindly intervention of the 
general government. Projects at Umatilla, Klamath 
and Malheur have been initiated by the federal engi- 
neers and everywhere in this eastern region of the state 
as soon as water is led over the fields the desert dis- 
appears and abundant crops spring up. Fruit, grain 
and in particular alfalfa, flourish on land where the 
early immigrants saw nothing but desolate sand and 
wearisome sage brush. In divers charming nooks 
among the mountains, like Eagle Valley, irrigation 
has been practiced for many years. The intelligent 
farmers of the Grande Ronde are applying it to increase 
the natural productiveness of their land, and the more 
progressive leaders of rural thought even in the Willa- 
mette Valley have begun to experiment with it. 

133. Portland. — Portland, the largest city in Oregon, 
has become a true metropolis with an abundant supply 
of pure water from a mountain stream, an art museum, 
a great public library, excellent schools, beautiful 
homes, flourishing newspapers^^^ and fine business 

*"The Oregonian, founded in the winter of 1850-1, ranks with the 
best newspapers in the United States. Harvey W. Scott has edited it 
since 1865. The first number appeared December 4, 1850. T. L. 
Dryer was the first editor. The Spectator, the first newspaper in 
Oregon, was estabhshed in 1846 at Oregon City, by the Oregon Print- 
ing Association and appeared twice a month. 



170 THE STORY OF OREGON 

houses. The World's Fair held here in 1905 to celebrate 
the hundredth anniversary of Lewis and Clark's jour- 
ney across the continent, attended as it was by mul- 
titudes from all parts of the country, made the beauties 
and commercial advantages of Portland widely known. 
The heights around the city and the Willamette River 
which flows through it are incomparably beautiful, 
while the citizens have added a singular charm by 
cultivating roses which flourish here in great luxuriance. 
Enthusiasts have named Portland the "Rose City" 
not inappropriately, and a pleasing event of each year 
is the Rose Festival, celebrated in the lovely days of 
early June, which attracts throngs of visitors to wit- 
ness the display of beautiful flowers. 



INDEX 



The numbers refer to sections, numbers preceded by "n" 
refer to notes. 



Abeniethy, George, 73, n 140 
Admission, 120 
Adventure, Tlie, 5 
Agricultural College, 125, 129 
Albany, 110 
American Board, GO-2-5, 78- 

9, 80 
American Fur Co., 30, Gl-2, 

77, n 32, n 94 
Applegate, Lindsay, 102 
Applegate, Jesse, 103, n 133 
Apples, 114, 130 
Ashburton Treaty, n 100 
Ashland, n 133 
Ashley, W. H., 45, n 44 
Astor, J. J., 29, 30-1-2, 35, 

30, n 33 
Astoria, 26, 31-2-3-4-5-0 
Atkinson, G. H., Ill 



Babcock, Dr. Ira L. 
Bailey, W. J., 75 
Baker's Bay, n 10 
Baker City, 121 
Ball, John, n 43 



74-5 



Bancroft, n 
Barlow, S. K., 102 
Beaver, The, 34, 30 
Beers, Alanson, 59 
Bellinger, C. B., n 128 
Benton, T. H., 108 
Blackfeet Indians, 45 
Blanchet, Father, 73-4-5, 82, 

n 98, n 112 
Blue Mountains, 91, 100 
Boise, n 81 

Bonneville, Capt., 45-0-7, 52 
Boone, Daniel, 21, n 27 
Bridger, Capt., 01 
Broughton, Lieut. W. R., 7, 

8, 9, n 10 
Brown, Mrs. Tabitha, 111 
Bryant, Wm. C, 3 
Buchanan, James, 108 
Burnett, P. H., 88, n 118 

Calhoun, John C, 108 
California and Oregon R. R., 

127-8 
Canadians, 56, 68, 82-3 



172 



INDEX 



Carver, Jonathan, 2, n 3 
Cascade Mountains 102, 103 
Cattle, 52-3-8, G2-4, 89, 91, 

n 57, n 71, n 97, n 99 
Cayuse War, 105, n 130 
Champoeg, 77, 83-4 
Chinook Jargon, 61, n 77 
Clark, Geo., Rogers, 19 
Clark, Wm. 21, 25, 49, 50 
Clark, Harvey, 111, n 94 
Clayquot Harbor, 5, 32 
Coal, 117 

Columbia River, 23, 31 
Columbia, Ship, 
Coin, 110, 114 
Cone, W. W., 72 
Coos Bay. 117 
Cook, Capt., 9 
Council Bluffs, 21 
Couch, Capt. J,, n 94 
Cowlitz River, n 131 
Crook, Gen., 118 
Gushing, Caleb, 70, 70 

Dalles, The, 01, 07, n 02 
Deception Bay, 4 
Demers, Father, 78, n 94 
Disappointment, Cape, 4 
Disosway, G. P., 50, n 52 
Donation Act, 115, n 144 
Douglas, J., n 138 
Dupratz, Lepage, 1 

Eagle Valley, 132, n GO 



Edwards, P. L., 58, n 50 
Eels, Gushing, n 85 
Emigrants, 40, 86, 101-2, 121, 

n 134 
Empire City, n 152 
England, 66, 107 

Farnham, T. J., 69^ 

Fiske, Pres. W., 50 

Flathead Indians, 61 

Flood, 123 

Floyd, Sergt. C, 20 

France, 14, 17 

Eraser River, 11 

French Prairie, 50, 73, n 65 

Frost, J. H., 72 

Fuca, Straits of, 7 

Gale, Joseph, 73, n 68 

Gantt, J., 89 

Gary, Rev. G., 93 

George, Fort, 35 

Gervais, J., 58, n 66 

Ghent, Treaty of, 36 

Gilliam, C, 105 

Goff, David, 103 

Gold, 109, 113, 114, 121, 122 

Gray, Capt. Robert, 3, 5, 0, 7, 

8, n 7 
Gray, W. H., 02-3^5 
Green River, 52, Gl-2-3 
Griffen, J. S., n 96 

Hall, Fort, 52-3-4, 61-3, 77, 
90 



INDEX 



173 



Harney, Gen., 121 

Heceta, 4, n 9 

Hines, Gustavus, 72-4, 84, n 

98 
Holliday, Ben, 127 
Holman, J. D., n 93 
Hood, Mt., 9 
Hood River, 131 
Hudson Bay Co., 10, 36, 38, 

40, 43, 46, 52-3-4-6, 62, 73, 

92-8-9, 105 
Humboldt River, 43 
Hunt, W. P., 34, 35, 42, 56, 

n 33 

Idaho, n 145 
Inland Empire, 121 
Irrigation, 121, 132, n 63, n 85 

Jack, Capt., 119 

Jefferson, Thos., 3, 7, 12, 13, 

14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21-7,nl8, 

n 20 
Jenny, The, n 10 
John Day River, 121 
Joint Occupation, 37, 107, 

n 86 

Kelley, Hall J., 47, 56, n 48 

La Grande, 121 
Land Grant, 124, 127 
Land Law, 85 

Lane, Gen. J., 108, U6, 120, 
n 140 



Lapwai, 64, 78-9, 80-1, 105, 

n 84 
Laramie, Fort, 52 
Lausanne, The, 71-2 
Lava Beds, 119 
Ledyard, J., 13, n 19 
Lee, Daniel, 67-69, n 56, n 57 
Lee, Jason, 47, 51-2-3-4-5- 

6-8-9, 62-3-7, 68-9, 70-1- 

2-4-6, 87, 93-4, n 54, n 57, 

n 58 
Leslie, David, 74, n 75 
Lewis and Clark, 3, 12, 13, 14, 

20, 22, 23, 26, 27, 28, 42, 

45 
Lewis, Meriwether, 18, 21-3, 

n 20 
Lewis River (Snake), 25, n 32 
Linn, I. F., 66, 70, 76 
Lolo Trail, 24 
Loriot, The, 58 
Louisiana, 1, 14, 17, n 14, n 

n 25, n 26 
Lovejoy, A. L., 79, n 109 

Mackenzie, Sir A., 11, 12, 13 

Mails, 120 

Mandan Indians, 20-1-2-34 

Marshfield, n 152 

May Dacre, The, 48, 51, 54, 

55, 61, n 54 
McBean, 105 
McDougal, D., 35 
McKay, T., 43, 52, 53, n 45 



174 



INDEX 



McLoughlin, Dr. J., 39, 48, 
50-3-4-5-6-8, 61-3-8, 73- 
5-7, 82, 99, n 50, n 149 

Meares, Capt. J., 4, n 8 

Meek, J., 83-4, 106-8 

Meek, Stephen H. L., 101 

Memorial to Congress, 68-9, 
70 

Methodist Missions, 50-1, 74- 
7, 93 

Missionaries, 40, 50-3-4-5-7- 
9, 65, n 85 

Modoc Indians, 117, 119 

Mofras, n 4, n 5 

Names of Columbia Points, 9 
Napoleon, 14, 16, 17, n 26 
Nesmith, J. W., 88, n 120, 

n 126 
Nez Perces, 25, 49, 50, 60-1 
Nootka Convention, n 9 
Nootka, n 9 
Northwest Fur Co., 35-6-9, 

n 16, n 31 
Northern Pacific R. R., 16, 22 

29, 31, 33 

Ogden, P. wS., 105 

Oregon, 27, 37, 39, 40-1-2-4- 

5-7-8, 56 
Oregon in 1841, n 97 
Oregon and California R. R., 

127, 128 
Oregon City, 92, n 106 



Oregon Country, n 15 

Oregon Institute, 82, 93, 111, 
n 107 

Oregon, Name, 2, 3 

Oregon Question, n 40, n 41, 
n 102, n 118, n 138 

Oregon Railroad and Naviga- 
tion Co., 128 

Oregon Trail, 45, 48, 51, 66, 
77, 80, n 62 

Oregon Spectator, n 94, n 153 

Oregonian, The, n 153 

Organic Law, 95, 108 

Pacific Fur Co., 31 
Pacific University, 11, 129 
Pack Trains, 121, 122 
Pambrun, 61 

Parker, Samuel, 60-1-4, n 76 
Perkins, H. K. W., n 75 
Pitman, Anna M., 57, 68, n 74 
Polk, Pres., 107-8 
Portland, 122, 132, n 142 
Port Orford, 117 
Prevost, J. B., 36 
Printing Press at Missions, 94 
Provisional Government, 73- 

4-5, 83 
Puget Sound, n 131 

Quincey, 111., 96 

Railroad Building, 127 
Red River of the North, 2 



INDEX 



175 



Richmond, J. P., 72 

River of the West, 1 

Rocky Mountain Fur Co., 43 

Rogue River, 130 

Rogue River Indians, 117 

Sacajawea, 24 

Salem, 55, 120 

Salmon, 54 

Sauvie's Island, 54, 73 

School Fund, 115, 125 

Schools, 41, 111, 115 

Scott, H. W., n 153 

Scott, Levi, 103 

Shepherd, Cyrus, n 56 

Shining Mountains, 1, n 2 

Shoshone Indians, 23-24 

Siskiyou Mountains, 116 

Slacum, W. A., 58, 66, n 70 

Slavery, lOS 

Smith, J. S., 43-4-5, n 44 

Smith, Sol. H., n 66 

Snake River (see Lewis 

River) 
South Pass, 45^. 
Spalding, H. H., 62 
Sublette, Wm., 48, 52 

Taxes, 94 

Temperance Society, 58, n 69 

The Dalles, 122 

Thompson, D., 33 

Thorn, Capt., 31-2, n 34 

Tonquin, The, 31, 32, 34 



Tualitin Academy, 111 
Tyler, Pres., 107 

Umpqua River, 43-4-5, 56, 

72, 116, n 48 
University, State, 125, 129, n 

149 

Vancouver, Fort, 39, 41, 43, 
48, 50-3-6-9, 61-3, n 42 

Vancouver, Capt. Geo., 7, 8, 
9, n 8, n 9 

Villard, H., 128 

Wagon Road, 45 

Waiilatpu, 61-4, 69, 77-8-9, 

80-1, 91, n 78, n 83 
Walker, C. M., n 58 
Walla Walla, 46, 53, 61-3, 

77, 121, 122 
Waller, A. F., 72-3 
Wapato, n 31 
Wapato Island, 54 
War of 1812, 34 
Washington, n 144 
White, Dr. Elijah, 59, 73, 76- 

7-9, 81-2-7-9, 100-1, n 104 
Whitman College, 129 
Whitman, M., 59, 60-1-2-3-4 

5, 77-8-9, 81, 90-1, n 105, 

n 122 
Whitman Massacre, 104 
Whitman, MfS., 62, 64 
Wilkes, Lieut., C. 73-5 



176 



INDEX 



Willamette River, 100 
Willamette Valley, 43, 55, 56 
William, Fort, 54 
Wilson, W. H., 59 
Wolf Meeting, n 113 
World's Fair, 132 
Wright, G. W., n 30 



Wyeth, N. J. 
1-2-3-4-6, 
50 n 51 



40, 47, 48, 50^ 
61-2, n 49, n 



Young, Ewing, 44-5, 56-8, 
68, 74-5, n 46, n 48, n 69, 
n 99 



AUG 191909 



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